


Fifty Percent

by GwendolynGrace



Series: Family Winchester [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Christmas, F/M, Family, Not Canon Compliant, Wee!chesters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-26
Updated: 2008-06-26
Packaged: 2018-05-18 09:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 46,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5919496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynGrace/pseuds/GwendolynGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While cleaning out John’s storage locker, Sam finds an envelope from his father addressed to someone from their past. Dean objects to delivering it, but Sam happens upon a hunt that takes them practically to her doorstep. Could they be demons released when the Gate opened? In 1989, shortly after the shtriga hunt, the Winchesters settle in small-town Ohio while John figures out whether or not he can keep hunting. Beverly Kirkland, the children’s librarian, meets the boys and their father. After a chance encounter with John, she reluctantly grows closer to him, all the while wondering what it is about the family that doesn’t quite add up….</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally part of the SPN Big Bang ficathon back in 2008. The artwork is by Sazzlette.
> 
> Here's my original author's note:  
> So many things about this, but I don’t want to give stuff away. Right. Well, first off, I had this in my head long before “Supernatural: Rising Son” came out, and before I found out that [Jeffrey Dean Morgan](http://www.imdb.com/media/rm713593344/nm0604747) and [Mary-Louise Parker](http://www.imdb.com/media/rm240950016/nm0000571) were a couple (and then they broke up before I finished drafting this). The idea came up while I was writing [Trost und Freude](http://archiveofourown.org/works/837986/chapters/1596600) for a holiday exchange - but takes place *before* that in the Wee!chester timeline. I’m very grateful to Sazzlette for her art of awesome (10 sketches, count'em OMG! - AND a music mix!), etakyma for her unfailing willingness to read what I’ve written and tell me how to fix it, july_july_july for her incredibly insightful beta-reading, and Wikipedia for lots of helpful information, ranging from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collectibles to the names of Kansas Governors to facts (and missing information) about our MOTW.
> 
> Told in two eras: 2007 and 1989. The 2007 storyline is set between “Bad Day at Black Rock” and “Sin City”; the flashback sequence references “Something Wicked.”
> 
>  
> 
> As mentioned, the 1989 storyline is a prequel to the second story in this series, but the two fics can be read in either order.

June 2007  
Black Rock, NY

“All right, I’m heading over to start going through the lockup for munitions,” Dean announced a day or two after Bela had shot Sam (and made off with Dean’s winning scratch tickets).

“Don’t open any more curse boxes,” Sam advised.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. You gonna come?”

“Nah. Lifting boxes and shifting stuff around? Not with this shoulder.”

But by day two, Sam decided differently. There just wasn’t any point to sitting around the motel room, and there wasn’t anywhere to go or any way to get there without the Impala. True, he needed the R&R, but he had to admit to curiosity, and there was also the nagging hope that something Dad had left behind would shed light on breaking Dean’s deal.

“S’matter, Sammy, no good movies on the Playboy channel this month? Or do they all involve clowns?” his brother teased when he pulled out of the lot with Sam sitting shotgun.

“Bite me. Bitch,” Sam added deliberately.

Dean grinned. Sam smiled into his lap. This was how it was supposed to be: Dean annoying but affectionate, Sam riding along to offer support and the occasional course correction.

Their trip down memory lane continued all that morning and, after lunch break, into the evening. Dean brought a couple fluorescent lamps inside so they could see. Sam found an outlet for the laptop and typed up notes on the items they found or wanted more information about. He particularly wanted to know why the heck Dad had a piano, but he’d settle for details on the use of several odd-looking charms or any one of the more curious artifacts, like the silver inkwell, the crystal sword, or the stuffed squirrel.

“Hey, would you look at this stuff,” Dean said, bringing up a box with baseball cards, school papers, and envelopes filed in it. An old model volcano stuck out of the top.

“God, you remember how much shit Dad gave you over not telling him about that volcano thing?” Dean continued. “Guess Dad was more sentimental than we gave him credit for.”

Sam accepted the box and unceremoniously dumped the model volcano into a large trash bin. He ran his hand over the files—both his and Dean’s old papers and report cards—and stopped at a sealed manila envelope. He pulled it out.

“Sam, check this—”

“Hey, Dean. Do you remember Mrs. Kirkland?”

Dean sneezed. “That children’s librarian in Ohio? Yeah. Yeah, I kinda remember. Why?”

“‘Cause Dad’s got an envelope with her name on it.” 

Dean dropped the ammo box he’d found and came over. “Huh.”

Sam looked up at him. “Should we open it?”

“Nah.” Dean sniffed. His nose twitched. “Whatever that is, it’s got nothing to do with us. Leave it or get rid of it. Doesn’t matter.”

“Dean.” Sam squinted at him. Dean was far from the most nostalgic person, but his tone had more tension in it than the dismissive nature of the words. Possibly the volume of Dad’s mementos was getting to him. “Dude, we should…maybe we should send it to her?”

“What, out of the blue, here’s a random envelope from seventeen years ago? Nah, Sam. Just toss it.” That time he definitely sounded dismissive.

Sam said nothing. He studied Dean for a sign that he was hiding something, but Dean just shrugged and turned back to the pile he’d been working on. Sam set the envelope aside and slipped it into his laptop satchel. Underneath another sheaf of papers, there was also a small box, also wrapped in brown paper and addressed to her. He cached that in his bag, too.

“Freakin’ armor, man,” Dean observed. He pulled out a bulletproof vest and a riot shield. “Where did he get this stuff? And what the hell was he thinking, hoarding all this crap?”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Would you ever think of Dad as a packrat?”

“Mr. ‘Your gear should never expand beyond what you can carry?’ No way.” He sneezed again. “Damn. I think there’s mold or something in this corner.”

“Wanna get out of here for a while?” Sam offered.

“Sure, let’s get dinner.”

Considering how much was crammed into the locker, Sam wasn’t a bit surprised when Dean tired of the task within a couple more days. He had begun scanning the news and magazine sites in the evenings, preparing someplace for them to go on the off chance Dean announced his boredom.

“Dude, this is tedious,” Dean announced that evening. They’d been eating their meals at Biggerson’s all week. Dean had declared his intention to work his way through the entire menu, except for salads, and Sam was pretty sure his brother had already worked his way through all the eligible waitresses. All of which meant he’d been right to start looking for a job. He waited until Dean had selected the chicken special before suggesting a road trip.

“So, I found something that might be our kind of gig,” he opened.

“Oh, yeah?” Dean duckbilled his lips, tilting his head side to side. “I guess the locker isn’t going anywhere. What’s blowing up your skirt?”

“Uh…okay, well, I saw a missing persons report in the Columbus Dispatch. Lauren Kennedy, she’s a 19-year-old student at Case Western up in Cleveland. Her roommate reported her missing six days ago. Then last night she was picked up in Northwood Park where she’d allegedly taken out a whole bar full of truckers.”

“Whoa,” Dean said, imitating Keanu. “You thinking demon?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Her lawyer says she doesn’t remember anything.”

“So what then, demon takes off and leaves the human to take the rap?”

“Sounds like it.”

“But if the demon’s gone—”

“Well, I did a little digging and found another story, same deal. Guy goes missing in Columbus, and shows up five days later just outside of Cleveland. Two days before Lauren goes missing.”

“Yeah?” Dean’s interest increased perceptibly. Before he’d been half-listening; now, he sat up straighter, leaned his elbows on the table.

“Yeah, and he was arrested in the middle of a crime, caught red-handed.”

Dean closed his eyes, eyebrows rising. He opened his eyes again to ask: “What’d he do?”

“Burned down a house—and he’s suspected of two other arsons on the night before he was arrested.”

“And no memory, right?”

“Yup.”

“Huh.” Dean waited while the waitress brought their food. When she had walked away, Dean rearranged the contents of his plate in preparation for eating. “One thing, though—if the demon’s hijacking people, making them do crazy stuff, then taking another ride…won’t it have left Columbus by now?”

“Maybe,” Sam admitted. “But odds are the demon will find someone else in the area. So—”

“Yeah, okay, look for missing persons reported in the last couple days.” Dean cut a piece of chicken and shoved it in his mouth. “Still, we’ll be chasing this thing and who knows what its next move is gonna be?”

“Got a better chance of catching it if we get to Ohio, at least,” Sam muttered. They ate in silence for a while. “There’s something else we could do…while we’re in the area.”

“Cedar Point?” Dean leered, mouth full.

“No, not….” Sam wrinkled his nose at his brother. “No. Um. We could take that letter to Mrs. Kirkland.”

Dean paused with the fork halfway to his mouth. “I thought you threw that thing out.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“Sam, it’s got nothing to do with us,” he said sternly. He pulled the meat off his fork with his teeth and chewed angrily.

“Dean. I remember. We lived in Dublin from September to the end of January—five months. That’s as long as I remember staying anywhere at one time.”

“Yeah, so?” Dean reinvigorated the attack on his chicken.

“So…tell me that’s not significant. Maybe…maybe Mrs. Kirkland had something to do with why we were there so long. Maybe she deserves to know what happened to Dad.”

“Listen, Sam,” Dean said with a decidedly more militant tone, “Staying in that town so long…it had nothing to do with her.”

Sam could tell that Dean was growing more agitated. He sounded like he always did when he wished Sam would drop the subject, take his word as absolute. It was so much like Dad that Sam wanted to kick him under the table. Instead, he just fired back: “How do you know?”

“Sam….” Sure enough, Dean pushed his plate away, as if the conversation had ruined his appetite. He pressed himself into the seat cushion. Sam figured that if they’d been in a motel room or somewhere else less confined than the booth, Dean would have moved away from him. “Don’t you get it?” he said finally, as if the admission caused physical pain. “Think about the timing, dude. It was right after Fort Douglass. The shtriga.”

Sam fought to keep his jaw closed. As it was, he knew his expression probably looked bitchy—bitchier than he intended. Dean’s eyes burned through him, accusing him of bringing up something he thought Dean had buried over a year ago.

“Dean. Please tell me you’re not still beating yourself up about all that.”

“I’m not, Sam. Okay? You’re the one digging in the dirt, here. You want to know why we stayed in Dublin that long? I’m telling you. Not because of some…librarian.” He said it the way an octogenarian would say “floozy.”

“Okay…” Sam said slowly. “That doesn’t change the fact that there’s something to check out in the area. And like you said, the locker isn’t going anywhere.”

Dean pushed his mashed potatoes around on his plate. “Yeah. Okay. But just to check out the case, deal?”

Sam nodded, schooling his face to blandness. He wasn’t sure why Dean was so adamantly against the sidetrip, but he set it to rest for the moment. “Sure.”

 

~*~

September 1989  
Dublin, Ohio

Beverly noticed him immediately, the moment he came into the Dublin Library. He appeared on a Saturday, shepherding two boys over to the Children’s Section, passing right by her desk. “Sammy, here,” he said gruffly, with the tone she recognized from countless parents at the edge of their patience. “Sammy! No….” He grabbed little grubby hands before the child—he couldn’t have been more than six—could slip between two picture book racks and get away.

“Sammy” whined a protest, but quietly, as if used to libraries and aware that he wasn’t allowed to be loud. His father plunked him down at the table just beyond Beverly’s desk. The boy glared mutinously, but stayed where his father put him.

“Dean, get over here,” the father barked testily. From the annoyance that laced his voice, it had already been a difficult morning for the three of them. The older boy snapped around at his name. He was standing in front of a metal upright rack, had been about to twirl it around, but he abandoned it immediately and crossed to the table. His father was trying to get his little brother set up with a picture book.

Something about the way they interacted—the younger boy’s restrained protests, the older one’s immediate obedience—raised Beverly’s hackles. The little one didn’t respond to censure with wails or noise she generally had to endure from others his age. The elder boy watched his father like a hawk, putting himself between his brother and the dad, and taking over the task without prompting. Neither made eye contact with anyone else, including their father. After more than seven years on the job, she could discern the telltale signs of an abusive parent. She hadn’t seen any of the three of them before, and in a town the size of Dublin, with one library, that suggested they had moved recently. Escaping Social Services, perhaps? She stepped forward to offer assistance, perhaps to intervene.

“May I help you find something?” she asked neutrally.

He looked away from his sons. “Dean” had opened the book and was enticing “Sammy” to look at the pictures and sound out the words. He had a good face, the father—if a little craggy, at least well proportioned and fairly handsome. He seemed about her age, maybe a year or two older. Dark eyes burned intensely under a forehead that hadn’t yet begun to wrinkle. He had a strong nose, even better cheekbones, and a jaw that was so sharp it could have split logs, even beneath its two-day stubble. His hair was as dark, but not quite as shaggy, as his younger son’s. It hadn’t been cut in a while.

His smile was not unfriendly, but it dismissed her nonetheless. “We’re fine, thanks.”

“We have a fairly good intermediate section,” she continued anyway, pointing to the stacks of pre-teen books. “If your son would like something for himself.”

The man’s eyebrows rose, as if the thought of his son reading age-appropriate material were foreign. Or perhaps just the idea of him reading for himself was what was foreign. He shook his head. “No, thanks.” Then he angled himself back to the pair of children, shutting her out. “Dean, keep your brother occupied. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be in the reference section if you need me,” he added. He pointed across the floor. With a curious smirk at Beverly, he got up and left them at the table.

Beverly couldn’t quite believe the man’s gall. Parents treated the library—and herself, specifically—as a makeshift babysitting service all the time, even when they hadn’t enrolled their kids in the programs she ran for that purpose. But they usually weren’t so blatant about it. Luckily, parents weren’t her direct customers. The kids were.

“It’s Dean, isn’t it?” she asked quietly. He looked up but didn’t nod right away. It came after he’d raked his eyes over her, in a mirror of his father’s assessment. “Well, Dean, I’m Mrs. Kirkland. This is my bailiwick, so—”

“Your what?” Dean asked timorously.

“My bailiwick. My fiefdom. My domain, you might say. The children’s section, I mean. So if you or your brother would like to find something in particular, you just ask.” She returned to her desk. In between reviewing selections for the month’s purchase list, she stole glances at the youngsters.

It surprised her when perhaps half an hour later, Dean appeared in front of her chair. “Excuse me?”

“Yes?” she said, smiling in her usual helpful way.

“Where’s the bathroom?”

“Oh. It’s just to the right of the circulation desk. Would you like me to show you?”

“No, I’ll find it, thanks.” He turned his back on her and reached the table in five quick strides. He grabbed his brother’s arm.

“No, Dean!” the little one whined, jerking away.

“Come _on_ ,” Dean whined back.

“I don’t gotta,” came the response. 

“Well, Dad said you gotta stay with me, so—”

“No, he didn’t, he said keep me _occupied_. That means busy an’ quiet. An’ I’m okay, Dean. I’ll stay here, I promise.”

The older boy glanced in the general direction of the reference section. Beverly got the impression he was weighing the likelihood that their father would return while he was gone. Would catch him leaving his brother unattended. He seemed to deflate.

Beverly stood up. “I’ll be right here,” she announced. “I can keep an eye on—is it Sammy?—while you step away. If you like.”

Dean pointed a warning finger at his brother. “Don’t move,” he ordered, and hurried off toward the bathroom.

Sammy smiled at Beverly in apology. “Dean thinks I can’t tie my shoe without getting hurt,” he muttered. “But I can!” He brought put one of his sneakered feet on the chair Dean had vacated. He untied the laces, then deftly fastened them again. “See?”

“Yes,” Beverly said soberly. She sat with him, to get to his level. “Is that _Corduroy_?”

Sammy flipped it closed. “Yeah. But I’ve read it before. It’s boring.”

“What do you like to read?”

Sammy shrugged, but Beverly felt a little thrill. She loved this part—helping young minds find stimulation. It was one of the reasons she preferred the small-town library, where she could get to know her regulars and keep tabs on them year after year. After a few well-placed questions, she had a good idea of what would appeal to her young client.

“Let me bring you a couple choices,” she told him, rising. She pulled _Charlotte’s Web_ , an illustrated adaptation of _Treasure Island_ , _The Mouse and the Motorcycle_ , some of the Wayside School books, several _Encyclopedia Brown_ books, and an illustrated book about the American Revolution. Sammy opened the top book and began to read. His lips moved a little while he sounded out the words silently.

“What’s a Red-coat?” he sounded it out carefully. 

“A British soldier.”

“Oh. I like playing soldiers. My Dad was a Marine.”

“How hard are you finding that to read, Sammy?”

“It’s okay,” he said with a shrug. “George Washington—he’s on the dollar bill. He was the first President.”

“That’s right.” Beverly made a mental adjustment to his reading level, shifting it up a bit.

Dean returned. “Sammy, don’t pester the lady.”

“M’not,” Sammy defended himself.

“Not at all,” Beverly added. “We were just picking out a few books that are more exciting than _Corduroy_. What about you?” she asked to bring him into the conversation. “Do you prefer history? Sports?”

Dean shrugged. “I was only reading to Sam to keep him quiet.”

“An’ busy,” Sam interjected, as if this were something his brother told him a lot. “What’s this word?” He held out his book to Beverly, pointing.

“Can you sound it out?” she challenged.

Sam rolled his eyes, but took the book back. “Fusilier,” he said. “I know how it sounds, but what does it mean?”

To her surprise, Dean answered first. “It’s like a rifleman, dummy.”

Beverly hid her smirk behind her hand. “That’s not very nice, Dean,” she said lightly. She kept asking them questions about what they’d read, what they liked, and how difficult certain books were, until she had a fair idea of what would tempt each of them. “You hang out here,” she said. “I’ll be back with some more things for both of you.” Ignoring Dean’s little groan, she rose and walked around her section efficiently.

She pulled copies of _Hatchet, Tom Sawyer, White Fang,_ one of the _Hardy Boys_ mysteries, an illustrated _Robin Hood,_ and _Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing_. She brought them all back to the table.

Dean’s eyes went wide. “We’re not gonna be here _that_ long,” he said incredulously.

“We’ll set you up with library cards,” Beverly replied. “You can each take out up to five books and keep them for two weeks.”

Sam looked at his brother sharply. The two exchanged an intense look, as if communicating telepathically. “I’m not sure we’ll be here in two weeks,” Dean said to Sam apologetically.

“Are you…visiting? On vacation?” Beverly guessed.

“Oh, uh, no.…” He sounded suddenly guilty, as if he hadn’t meant her to hear him. Beverly backed off—given the father’s reticence, she thought perhaps Dean had been told not to share any details about their situation. It occurred to her suddenly that they might be transients. But the homeless problem in Dublin didn’t come close to the populations in Columbus or even Dayton.

“Tell you what,” she said sweetly. “You two look through these for now and pick out one each to read while you’re waiting for your dad. When he gets back you can ask about cards.”

Dean hesitated. Sammy raked his teeth—he’d lost one recently—over his bottom lip as he watched his brother. Dean looked at Sam again and seemed to make a decision. “Okay,” he said firmly, with a strange smile that made him look older than the ten she guessed he was. “We’ll look at these.”

After about an hour, Beverly began to wonder if their father _was_ coming back. It wasn’t unheard of, sad to say—just last April, she’d had to call Child and Family Services for a little girl abandoned by her mother. Between helping other families, she kept checking on the boys, who were still flipping through the books. A couple times, Sam went to pull something else off a shelf, or Dean would turn the pages listlessly, not really reading but too bored not to read. Just as Beverly was about to go prowl the reference section herself in search of their father, she saw him crossing the open central area by circulation. His old leather mailbag looked bulkier—and heavier—than it had on the way in.

“Hey, boys,” he said affectionately as he approached. “Ready for lunch?”

“Dad! You’re done already?” Dean jumped to his feet, pushing the book away.

“For now, anyway. Sammy?”

Sam was absorbed in the adaptation of _Treasure Island_. His father frowned down at him. “Whatcha got there, buddy?” He crouched at Sam’s level to peer at the book. Beverly couldn’t quite believe that this man and the gruff, impatient one from mid-morning were the same person. She reminded herself that abusers could be charming and engaging…when they wanted to be.

Dean pointed toward her desk. She couldn’t pretend not to see, or hear him accuse, “She gave it to him.”

The father’s head swiveled and their eyes met. Beverly kept hers wide, open and innocent, what Tom used to call her “Bambi” look. She couldn’t quite keep the corner of her mouth straight; it quirked toward her ear, giving her face what she knew was an ironic twist. She steeled herself for an argument.

But to her surprise (and pleasure), he smiled in a much more friendly way than before. There was no mistaking the look of attraction, but he hid it well. Beverly tried to envision herself as he saw her: 5’7” in a petite frame, hour-glass figure, dark brown hair that rested on her shoulders and matched her eyes. She knew from experience that her heart-shaped face and apple cheeks, her button nose and full lower lip, gave her a cherubic appearance. Tom had assured her once that any man would consider her the “whole package.” They’d been in love so she’d been inclined to soft-pedal his praise, but in her less modest moments before the mirror, she had to admit, she had kept herself looking pretty hot, even on the other side of thirty.

‘They didn’t bother you, did they?” he asked calmly after a moment.

“Not at all. They’ve been very good.”

Sam looked up. He cupped his hand around his mouth to whisper in his father’s ear.

“Not today, Sammy,” his dad said, shaking his head and straightening up. “But…maybe we’ll come back another time. Okay?” Sammy didn’t look pleased, but he set the book aside. “Grab your gear, boys,” the father continued. Dean hurried to gather up the backpack he’d put on one of the other chairs; Sam looked at the books, then up at his father again.

“I’ll put those away, Sam,” Beverly told him, jumping in to keep the father from getting annoyed. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sam smiled over to her and accepted the light jacket Dean handed him. “Bye,” he said, as they filed out behind their dad.

“Bye, Sam. I hope to see you again,” Beverly said. She meant it, but she took care to sound neutral.

 

~*~NOW~*~

“Hey, Sam!” Dean’s sharp voice pulled him awake.

“Huh?” he startled, head bouncing on the car window, where he’d been leaning. He must have been asleep for a while; he had a real crick in his neck.

“Look alive, princess, we’re here.”

“Where’s here?”

“Uh…your case? Plain City? Columbus? Demon hunting? Any of this ring a bell?”

“Yeah, I know—” Sam sat up, cracking vertebrae as he stretched. Dean was winding him up. He knew it and he let it work every time, and he _hated_ that. “I meant,” he started again, forcing himself calm, “where have you decided we’re starting?”

Dean flicked a credit-card-sized room key into Sam’s lap. “I’m starting with a shower and maybe a steak dinner.” He opened his door and slammed it shut on the way to the trunk.

Five minutes later they were in room 129 of the Dutchman Motel: ten by fifteen feet with two beds, an efficiency bathroom, and a desk in the corner. The walls were neutral white, for once, but two giant prints hung above each bed, Kincade knockoffs or similar, highlighting the Pennsylvania-Dutch, it looked like: single-horse carriages, farmscapes with hex marks painted brightly on their gabled roofs. The bedspreads underneath were imitation quilts; the furniture was in mission-style and mostly looked severe and uncomfortable. But it wasn’t the worst room they’d ever rented.

“Hey, Internet,” Dean pointed out to him while he dumped his duffel on the desk chair, as if he were offering Sam a cookie.

“Good,” he acknowledged, because not to do so would make Dean pout. And a petulant Dean was twice as annoying as Dean when he was magnanimous.

Dean pulled out his dop kit and disappeared into the bathroom shortly after they settled in. Moments later, Sam heard the water run. He flicked on the TV to provide his own soundtrack and pulled out his phone. With Dean so testy about sticking to the case, there was only one person Sam could think of who might shed some light on Dad’s secret past.

“Hey, Bobby, it’s Sam,” he said into the answering machine after listening through Bobby’s greeting. “Just wanted to let you know Dean and I are in Columbus, Ohio, on a case, possibly a demon…. Also, we found something in Dad’s locker and…I just wondered if you knew anything about her. It. About it. Uh…not urgent. Just…call me if you get a chance.” He punched “End” and saw about circumventing the $9.95 daily charge for the net.

 

~*~THEN~*~

The second time Beverly saw Sam and Dean was after school the next week. The library was on several bus routes, so she ran programs especially for kids who didn’t have anyone waiting right at home right at 3:00. When half a busload of children clattered in, Beverly was expecting them. She wasn’t expecting Sam and Dean to be among them.

Sam ignored the activities she’d set up in the little playroom off in the corner away from other patrons. He came right up to her desk. “Hi,” he said brightly. “Um. I don’t know if you remember….”

“ _Treasure Island_ , wasn’t it?” Beverly confirmed. “Would you like to pick up where you left off?” She was already in motion.

Sam nodded. Beverly went to the shelf and pulled the edition for him.

“Thanks. I’ll put it back when…later.”

“You don’t have to,” Beverly said. She showed him the cart. “But if you’d like to put it here when you’re done, that would be helpful.”

“Okay.” He sat at the table. Within seconds, he’d found his place and got swept away with sand and seaspray.

Dean had ducked his head into the activity room, but came out shortly to check on his brother. “‘Cha doin’?”

“Duh. M’readin’.”

“ _Treasure Island_ ,” Dean said, feigning interest. “Oh, yeah. I remember that. The butler did it.”

“Dummy, there’s not even a butler,” Sam replied sincerely.

“Whatever.”

Several kids came out a little noisily to browse the stacks and “New Books” display. Beverly went over to quiet them by helping find selections. Planning her approach, she pulled another couple books off the shelves and brought them back with her.

“It’s good to see you again,” she told Dean casually. “These might interest you.”

Dean glanced at the covers, but just shrugged in response to her offer.

“Dean hates reading,” Sammy volunteered. Dean blushed.

“Lots of young people don’t like to read.” Beverly smiled openly. “What do you like? Sports?” He looked like an active child.

“Cars,” Dean said, so softly that Beverly could barely hear him.

Cars were not her area. “Hm. Well, would you like to take a look in Periodicals? I’m sure we get _Motor Trend_. _Car & Driver_?”

He smiled slyly. “I like those—my dad got me some of those for—last year.”

“Well, they issue monthly, so sounds like you’ve missed a few. The section’s that way.” She pointed. “Sam’s fine here.”

He glanced at his brother, who nodded at him. “M’okay, Dean, jeez.”

“Okay.” He wandered away.

Sam looked at the covers of the books Beverly had shown Dean. “What’s this one about?”

“It’s about a young man, a little older than your brother, who fights in the Revolution.”

Sam opened it up. “Dean’s class had to read a book last year about that, but he wouldn’t because of the title.”

“ _Johnny Tremain_?” Beverly asked, tapping the front page of the book.

“No. It had my name in it. _My Brother Sam is Dead_. He _freaked_ in class. They sent him to the nurse.” Sam wrinkled his nose. “But then he pretended like he’d never got upset at all.”

“Sounds like he likes you a lot, huh?”

Sam shrugged. “No, he doesn’t,” he muttered. “He treats me like a baby. Thinks I can’t do anything by myself.”

“So, he takes care of you?”

“Yeah, I guess. Most of the time he acts like I’m toxic waste.”

Beverly smiled, showing white, even teeth. “Brothers are like that. Especially older brothers.” 

A girl came up to the table. “Mrs. Kirkland, is someone reading this?” she asked, picking up _Sign of the Beaver_.

“No, Krista—it’s sitting closed on the table,” Beverly teased.

“I mean, that boy—he’s not going to check it out, is he?”

“I don’t think so. You go ahead.” She got up. “Excuse me,” she said to Sam. She walked over to her desk with Krista, took her library card, scanned the book’s bar code, and stamped the slip inside it. She handed it back with Krista’s card. Over Krista’s shoulder, she saw that Sam watched the whole process hungrily.

Another student came to the desk to ask a question and Beverly checked on the reading activities on her way back, so it was a while before she could ask Sam if he wanted a library card.

At his wide-eyed nod, Beverly smiled knowingly. She beckoned him to the desk. “We can fill out the paperwork. Is your dad coming to pick you up?”

Another nod. 

“Okay, well, he’ll have to sign for it when he comes, but that will only take a second. Do you know your address?”

He did, but not the zip. Beverly filled that in for him. “How about your phone number?”

“Hey, Sammy, whatcha doin’?” Dean approached.

Sam pointed to the application under Beverly’s hand. “Liberry card,” he explained.

“Would you like one, too?” Beverly asked.

Dean wrinkled his nose as if the idea of a library card and that of gym socks worn ten days straight bore a similar smell. “Nah,” he said. He plunked down at the table, put his feet on another chair, and opened up the magazine he’d brought with him. It wasn’t about cars—it was a copy of _MAD_.

Beverly winked at Sam. “Do you want to put the phone number in yourself?”

Sam accepted the pen, but hovered with it over the page. “Um…Dean? What’s the new number?”

Dean slapped the magazine onto the tabletop and came over. He snatched the pen away from Sam and wrote in seven digits. “Gonna have to learn it, Sammy.”

“It’s only been two days,” Sam whined.

Beverly took the form back. “Once your dad signs this, you can take out—”

“—Up to five books. An’ keep’em for two weeks. You said before.”

“How is it possible,” Dean drawled, “that you can’t learn our new phone number, but you remember a tiny detail like that from a week ago? You’re such a geekasaur.”

Sam gave his brother a look that would not have been out of place on a teenage girl experiencing hormonal shift. “The geekasaur was the smartest of all the dinosaurs,” he claimed, “and could hunt other, much larger creatures with the power of its amazing brain.”

“But it was still no match for the stronger, faster Dean-osaur!” Dean told him. He reached out and before Beverly could say, “No roughhousing!” he turned Sam’s arm behind his back.

Sam wasn’t perturbed in the slightest, though. He whirled around in the direction of his chicken wing. 

“Guys!” Beverly said sternly. “No fighting.”

“Sorry,” they said together, dropping their hands, but grinning.

“This is a library, not a gymnasium,” she continued in the arch tones of her old professor from her library science master’s program at Northwestern. Back when she’d figured out a big city was not her style, to say nothing of being apart from Tom for all that time. But she put the memories away and smiled again, unable to resist the charming way they broke apart and pushed each other back to the table.

They were still reading when the last of the other kids got picked up. “Is your dad going to be along soon?” she asked. “Not that I’m in a hurry, but…shouldn’t you be getting home for dinner?”

“He’s coming,” Dean said confidently.

It was another half hour before he showed up. He had on an old t-shirt under flannel, and though his hands looked scrubbed recently, there was something that looked like motor oil under his nails.

“Why aren’t you ready to go?” he asked Dean.

Dean jumped up, dropping the magazine in the middle of his page. “We are, sir,” he said with deference, grabbing his bag hastily. “Sammy, get your gear.”

“Dad, sign my card!” Sam requested exuberantly. 

“What?” he snapped, sounding exasperated and understandably confused.

“My liberry card. Please?” He pointed to Beverly over at the desk.

“Oh.” The father frowned at her. “Corrupting my sons?” he asked, but there was a definite flirtatious edge to the accusation. Beverly found herself happy she’d worn her new red blouse. Not that it was particularly sexy—she was still a children’s librarian in Ohio—but she knew that it set off the color in her cheeks, brought out the reddish highlights in her hair, and made her eyes look chocolatey-brown. It hugged her in the right places. The short sleeves made her arms look more trim than they really were, and didn’t make her look too hippy, either. Though she couldn’t do much about the plain trousers, at least she was wearing a shoe with a bit of a heel on it. She reminded herself that he was probably married, but she still had sense to take his wolfish assessment as a compliment.

“Yes, if you consider self-education subversive,” she replied, pulling herself out of their staring match. “Just fill out this top line…and if you’ve got a daytime number? Put that here…and sign down here.”

He printed strong block letters. For the daytime number, he pulled out a business card and copied the number off it. Then he scribbled a signature and handed it all back. His wedding ring glinted where he rested his hand on the counter.

“Okay…John,” she said, flicking her eyes over the name and hiding disappointment. She reached into the desk drawer and took out a temporary card. “I’m Beverly. This is for today,” she continued, printing “SAM WINCHESTER” across the top. “His permanent card will take about a week.”

John smiled. “Thanks,” he said warily.

Sam stepped forward with five books. Beverly entered the card info by hand and demagnetized the books, stamping the insert. “There you go,” she said, pushing the pile toward him. He tipped the stack into his bookbag. 

“Okay, champ,” John patted the back of Sam’s head once and steered him away from the desk. “See you around,” he purred with a nod toward her, then turned to usher the boys out of the building.

It took Judith all of ten seconds to rush over to her from Media. “Who was the dreamboat?”

Beverly looked at the application. “John Winchester,” she read. “But ease off, Judes. He’s married.”

“Are you sure?” Judith leered at her. At least it wasn’t the look of pity Judith usually offered when an “eligible” guy appeared.

“Saw the ring, Judes.”

“Oh.” And there was the look of pity, right on cue. “Too bad. He’s cute.”

“Cute?” Beverly could think of a number of adjectives to describe John Winchester, but “cute” wasn’t one of them. “There’s something off in that family, though,” she continued. Her musing was more to keep Judith from turning the conversation to another lecture on how _It’s been nearly three years; don’t you think it’s time to get out there again?_ that always seemed to accompany Judith’s discourse.

“Oh, Bev, he was here for five minutes—”

“No, they’ve been here before,” Beverly explained. “And something—that older boy—I can’t put my finger on it.”

“Child abuse?” Judith asked seriously, all trace of “girl talk” vanished.

“I thought so at first. But…I’m not sure. I don’t think so. But I don’t know what it is.”

“Well, you’ll figure it out. You always do, Bev. Now, please,” Judith continued, “let me see if Andrew’s free for dinner Friday—”

“Judes, Andrew’s a very nice guy, for a market analyst. He’s very clean-cut, kind to small animals, and environmentally conscious. And he and I are just not compatible.”

“But you barely—”

“I went on two dates with him,” Beverly said. “Two dates, Judith, and he treated me like porcelain the whole time. Plus, he’s _boring_. On the first date, he seemed afraid to bring up any topic deeper than the latest Swarzenegger film. On he second, all he talked about was his work and how computer software is going to revolutionize industry.”

“I just don’t understand—I mean, he said he just didn’t want the evening to turn into talking about his ex or—anything,” she finished lamely.

“Meaning you warned him to avoid the topic. Look, stop trying to find someone for me, Judith, please!” Beverly said defensively. “I’m sorry. Look, just…. I’m okay, okay? I’m really okay.”

And she really was. Mostly.

 

~*~NOW~*~

“Could you tell us anything you noticed about the suspect when she was here?”

The bartender at Lowell’s Tavern looked at Sam like he did not for one second believe he or Dean were ATF agents. Dean’s choice of their aliases, Edward Haskell and Lawrence Mondello, may have had more to do with that than the assessing look Dean was giving the beer list, the pool table, and the only waitress. Sam cleared his throat. Dean jerked his attention back to the barman, who decided to give up his information.

“We don’t get a lot of single chicks here, unnerstand,” he said. “An’ she was…well, she was pretty obviously trolling for it, y’know?” He waited while Sam nodded. “She got Munch and Luke sniffin’ after her. You ask me, she just wanted ‘em to start a brawl over her.”

“So, she was inciting them to fight?”

“Hell, yeah. Said something about it being the only way to escape.”

“Escape what?” Dean scoffed. The bartender just shrugged.

“What about anything else in the mix?” Sam asked, as if off-handedly. “Did you notice any unusual…substances around?” 

“Like?” The bartender frowned at him.

Sam swallowed and tried to look official. “Anything like a yellow powder, kinda sulfurous, or maybe like black smoke or oil?”

The bartender gave Sam the look. The one that said, “Are _you_ on any unusual substances?” He shook his head. “Cops went over this place pretty thorough. Didn’t find anything to suggest drugs.”

“But she did seem different, right?” Dean finally asked a follow-up. “After the fight?”

“Yeah, she seemed freaked. It was an act for the cops, if you ask me.”

“One other question. Have you ever seen this guy?” Sam held up the photo of the first missing and found guy: David Owen.

“That’s Davy—Travis’s little brother.”

Sam glanced at Dean to make sure he was paying attention. He in turn widened his eyes a little in a signal Sam understood: _We’ll talk later._

“Was Travis a regular?”

“Sure. Still is, though since they found Davy up in Cleveland he’s been dealing with that, y’know?”

“Okay, thank you.”

Outside, Dean said: “Maybe this thing _does_ have a local connection.”

“Yeah. Something’s not adding up yet, though.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like…why’s the demon staying put for nearly a week before making them into criminals?”

Dean shrugged. “Are we sure the thing’s moving in a straight line? I mean, maybe it ends up nearby five days later…”

“…But it goes somewhere else in between?” Sam frowned. “Yeah. Something to check out.”

Ever practical, Dean nodded, but said: “Okay, well, first, let’s concentrate on figuring out what happened when it did show up.”

 

~*~THEN~*~

Beverly saw Sam and Dean after school every few days for the next couple weeks. Their father always picked them up, but sometimes he told them to hang out a little longer while he used the reference or other sections. She never saw him take out any books himself, but his mailbag was usually stuffed with copies from the microfiche readers.

Dean displayed lukewarm interest during Banned Books week, but refused to fill out a library card application, however much he wanted to flip through _Go Ask Alice_. By contrast, Sam was going through his five-book limit in record time. He brought back two of his first five books three days after taking them out, and by the time Beverly had learned that he thought Taran should have stood up to Eilonwy and Will Stanton and Charles Wallace were both totally cool and Superfudge was totally lame and Encyclopedia Brown was the smartest kid ever (except for Dean), she had logged at least twenty books on Sam’s card. Dean only read what he had to read. On afternoons when she wasn’t busy, Beverly noticed him struggling through his homework.

“Need help with anything?” she offered during one such occasion.

Dean looked up. “I can’t remember what the coordinates are for Oklahoma City.”

“Coordinates?”

“Yeah. Longitude and latitude.”

“What class is this for?” she asked curiously.

“It’s a report on our summer vacation.”

“You spent your summer in Oklahoma?”

“Only part of it,” Sam volunteered over the margins of his book.

Dean kicked Sam under the table. Beverly pretended not to notice.

“Dean, let me show you where you can find that information,” she said to keep the sibling rivalry to a minimum under her watch.

That afternoon, when John came to pick them up, Beverly said, “Sam’s quite a voracious reader.”

“I know,” John said, looking a little mystified by it. “Sometimes I can’t get him to put down the books and do his chores.”

“What’s Dean’s excuse, then?” Beverly grinned. “He strikes me as the type who’d rather be playing baseball or football than chores.”

John shook his head. “Dean? He…he does what he’s told. Mostly,” he added very quietly. “C’mon boys,” he called, not too loudly, but with enough intensity to bring them running.

“C’n we go to Wendy’s?” Dean asked as the family moved toward the exit.

“We’ve done Wendy’s three times this week,” Beverly overheard John say. “How about Chinese?”

Which explained why, an hour later, she had a craving for orange chicken and egg roll. She called in her order from the library before leaving. After three tries, her car started and she drove to How Fun’s to pick up her take out.

“Mental note, Bev,” she told herself while waiting for her order, “get the car checked out next week.”

The door opened behind her with a musical tinkle. She looked around reflexively. It was John Winchester. He saw her, too, and laughed quietly once as he came over to the takeout counter.

“You gave me a taste for it,” she explained. She had no idea why she felt the need to defend herself. Maybe because the look he gave her was…a little wolfish.

“I guess there’s not a lot of choices around here for Chinese,” he surmised.

“Not good Chinese,” she agreed. “But…I’m sorry—but you left the library over an hour ago. I thought you’d be done with supper by now.”

John nodded. “We went for a run first.”

“Oh. All of you?” She knew she was fishing, but she couldn’t help it. He was attractive, dammit, but there was also the mystery man factor about him. Even after nearly three weeks, she couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong with the family. They were so insular—Dean and Sam almost never interacted with any of the other kids. It wasn’t normal. For the boys’ sake, if not her own, she let her curiosity persist.

John had nodded again. “It’s a little hard to pace both Dean and Sam, but Sammy’ll catch up.”

Beverly knew she was going to ask her next question and God, it embarrassed her to pry. She told herself it was to get to the bottom of their family situation and that it had nothing to do with his magnetism. “Does…does your wife run with you, too?”

John’s eyes narrowed. Beverly held up her left hand, thumb curling around her ring finger. And John’s walls went up, hard and solid and thick.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I didn’t mean to—” even with the walls, she saw it. Saw the grief and loss and the absence of his wife in his eyes. She recognized it from the mornings when she still occasionally woke up expecting Tom to be lying next to her.

Expecting Tom to be alive. 

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and meant something very different.

John looked away. On impulse, because it seemed like the easiest way to show him how clearly she understood, Beverly fumbled for the chain around her neck. She pulled it out from inside her crew-neck blouse. The plain gold band glinted in the light from the paper lanterns.

His head turned back to her sharply at the sudden movement, as if he were prepared to flinch away from a hand outstretched in sympathy. When he saw the wedding ring on its chain, he froze. Slowly, his eyes dragged up her neck, chin, nose, to meet hers.

“I get it,” Beverly said simply, and tucked the ring back over her heart. They stood silently for a moment.

Then Mr. How came out with their bags of food. Beverly paid for hers. As John approached the counter, pulling out his wallet, she nodded to him. “Goodnight,” she said with kindness, meaning “I’m sorry” again.

 

~*~NOW~*~

“Look, I told you, my client has nothing to say to the press.”

Sam nodded. Lauren Kennedy’s lawyer was a long shot as far as information went, but it might get them one step closer to figuring out how to track this thing. Sam still thought it was a demon; Dean had expressed doubt, but then, this whole case had him fairly crabby. “Did she say anything to anyone before leaving Cleveland?”

The attorney shook her head. “Look, it’s not ancient Assyrian. What part of ‘No Comment’ do you not understand?”

Dean decided to contribute. “Listen, sweetheart, we’re trying to help your client. Honestly, if you have anything you can tell us that would put this in perspective—”

“Our perspective is that we’ll leave this to the courts, and not the newspapers. Now get out!”

Sam put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “We’re going, we’re going,” he assured her as he pressed Dean to back away and out of the office.

Outside, Dean jabbed a finger toward the ground rapidly. He immediately pulled at his tie, loosening his collar against the late June heat. “This is nuts, Sammy. Tell you what we should be doing—talking to her ourselves.”

“Dean, you know we can’t just walk into a jail anymore—any jail,” Sam pointed out, trying not to sound testy. It had been Dean’s idea to pull that job for Deacon, which had put the FBI hot on their tails and really raised their importance on the wanted lists. Not only was it dangerous in itself, it made their jobs that much harder to do when they had to keep a low profile.

“I’m just saying, that’s where the witnesses are.”

“There are witnesses around here, too. And besides, we know this thing is picking its next victim based on where it last stopped. That’s here. Did you find anything on those missing persons reports I gave you?”

Dean scowled. He hated being told that his instincts were wrong, almost as much as he hated Sam giving the orders. While he was generally content to switch off being the lead dog, he nevertheless got frustrated when Sam shut down his methods or treated him as his subordinate. Which was weird, considering that he’d never minded that Dad had issued orders easy as breathing.

He didn’t make an issue of it, though, and instead pulled out his notes. “Okay, there were fourteen new files opened in the area since Wednesday, which is the day Lauren was apprehended. Eight of them were kids. I checked out the remaining six, but my money’s on this one.” He reached into the back seat and handed Sam one of the manila folders with the printout Sam had put together.

“Gareth Barker?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, why him?” Sam said. They climbed in the car and Sam began to leaf through the file while Dean pulled into traffic.

“Well, first of all, because he was just reported missing yesterday, which is the same interval that passed between when David Owen was caught and Lauren Kennedy went missing. Second, he and his car both disappeared, while everyone else went missing without their vehicle. And third, because his apartment had sulfur in it.”

Sam’s eyebrows shot up. Dean grumbled a lot, but he could investigate a case like no hunter Sam knew. “Okay. Any leads on where he took off?”

“Nope,” Dean said, cranking the wheel left toward their room. “But Sam, we gotta figure out how to get ahead of this thing. I mean, it can keep joyriding back and forth, but if we can’t anticipate where it’s going to wind up—”

“We’ll just be following it until we can catch a break,” Sam finished with a nod.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sam sighed.

“So what do you want to do?”

Sam shrugged. “Watch for a report with a sighting of this guy. See where he shows up, if he commits any crimes, I guess.”

Predictably, that didn’t sit well with Dean. He preferred action to waiting, and the idea that another innocent would have to suffer before they could suss the pattern really went against Dean’s heroic self-image. He said so, in no uncertain terms, at least a dozen times that evening.

“Look, Dean, I know. It sucks, okay? I don’t like having to wait for some of the hunts to come to us, either. But sometimes, that’s the way it is.”

Dean cocked his head toward him. “You feeling all right?”

Sam looked at the ceiling. “Yes, I’m fine. I’m not any happier than you are that this is a dead end so far, okay?”

“Okay,” Dean said cautiously.

“So don’t…just don’t make it sound like I’m keeping you from doing something important.”

Dean backed down. “Let’s…let’s concentrate on what we can figure out about its pattern,” he offered. He joined Sam at the desk and began to sift through Sam’s papers. Sam moved his hand to intercept a fraction of a second too late.

“Don’t look—”

Dean smacked his hand away. “Don’t look?” he repeated glibly, pulling out the folder. Like a dog catching the scent of blood, Dean turned Sam’s secret into an opportunity to torment him. “Sammy,” he drawled, “are you saying you _don’t_ want me to help with research now?” He fanned himself dramatically with the folder, ignoring Sam’s attempts to grab it away. “Can’t be. You may be geekboy el supremo, but you’ve never objected to me pulling a little weight in that department.”

Sam knew Dean was just torturing him to get a rise out of him, but he also knew that Dean really wouldn’t want to see what was in the file. He didn’t really have a choice, so he played into Dean’s teasing the way Dean expected him to do. “Dean, give it—” Sam reached up, but Dean pushed him back into the desk chair. Standing, he had better leverage and more reach than Sam was accustomed to him having. 

“Nuh-uh,” Dean taunted. “You don’t want me to see this, which means…hey, is it porn?” He grinned widely. 

“No,” Sam said, aware, but unable to stop from sounding incensed at the accusation.

“‘Cause you know, I warned you about the midget obsession, Sasquatch.” Dean snapped the folder out of his grasp again. “It’s not anything to do with the deal?” he asked, suddenly serious and angry. “Because I told you—”

“What? No, Dean—it’s got nothing—”

Dean opened the folder and looked at the note Sam had placed inside, at the address on the envelope in their father’s block writing. He flicked his eyes to Sam’s face. Sam winced at the anger, accusation, and betrayal in Dean’s eyes. “Dude. I told you to throw this out.”

“Dean, Dublin’s only a few miles—”

“I mean it, Sammy, you don’t even know if she—”

“I checked, okay?” Sam stood up to grab Dean’s arm and wrench the folder away. “That’s what the note is. While I was in the library, I looked her up. Mrs. Kirkland still lives in Dublin.”

“Sam—”

“What, Dean?! I mean, what the hell has you so dead set against delivering this?”

Dean paced the room, leaned against the bathroom doorjamb. “Dude, I just think…I just think we should stay out of it. It’s none of our business.”

“Why, because Dad and Mrs. Kirkland were—”

“No, that’s got nothing to do with—”

“Well, then what, Dean? Because I know you know Dad was human, so tell me this isn’t another episode of how perfect—”

“You have no fucking clue, Sam—”

“So, clue me, Dean!” Sam raised his arms to the side. “Tell me what I’m missing here. Is it about Mom? Did you think Dad was gonna—”

“Shuddup!” Dean yelled. He pushed off the wall and grabbed his keys. “Man, I do not have to deal with this,” he muttered as he threw himself out the door.

Sam raked his hands through his hair. Dean’s attitude surprised him more than it probably should have. Only a couple months ago, Dean had laughed off a demon’s accusation that he was a walking billboard for lust. Considering that he basically made himself a slave to his carnal desires, he had a huge problem accepting any hint that their dad had ever got laid. But he knew as well as Sam that Dad hadn’t been completely immune to women. So why was this particular relationship putting a bug up his butt?

He stared at the address on the envelope for a long time before sighing, setting it aside, and pulling out Gareth Barker’s missing persons report to read it again.


	2. Part Two

~*~THEN~*~

Three days after her first real conversation with John Winchester, Beverly was last out of the library. Lisa, the circulation clerk, had asked if Beverly could close, because her mother had been moved into the ICU again. Beverly had agreed readily. She turned off the computer and the lights and let herself out through the back door. Her car—Tom’s old, decrepit, impractical ragtop Ford LTD roadster—looked lonely under the single parking lot streetlamp.

Ordinarily, Beverly didn’t feel nervous or scared of the dark. Crime wasn’t that big a concern out here, though it seemed every year there was some warning that the Columbus and Cincinnati gangs and druglords had “set their sights” on Dublin. But there was no moon that night, and Beverly suppressed a sudden urge to crouch down and check under her car for a prowler.

There wasn’t any prowler, no bogeyman waiting for her to snatch her by the throat or take her purse, her keys, or her body. She laughed away the fear while she unlocked her car door and climbed in. Naturally, she would be more nervous on a night when she’d worn a dress and heels instead of slacks. 

The engine didn’t turn over. “Come on, Tom,” she coaxed. “Let’s not do this tonight.” She tried again. On her third keytwist, there was an awful gargling _clunk_ sound and the engine died again. “Shit.”

She opened the hood, got out, and looked at the engine just long enough to see that there was smoke coming off the block, and that she hadn’t the faintest idea how to fix it. She closed the hood with a sigh and walked back to the library door. It took two minutes to let herself in to the employees’ lounge and use the phone.

Triple-A said they’d issue a call to a local garage and someone would be there within 45 minutes. Beverly’s stomach grumbled. She remembered there was an apple in her desk, so she opened the door to the main floor and crossed. Her pumps clicked and clacked in the empty chamber.

She brought the apple back to the lounge and waited. About fifteen minutes later, they called to tell her the tow truck would be coming from her own garage. Which probably meant Jimmy—a twenty-two-year-old with rotten taste in music and even worse taste in girls. He was always running little extra trips to try to patch things up with whatever girlfriend of the week he was seeing.

She tried not to think about what time she might actually get home, but that allowed worry about the car to flood into her brain. Speculation was no good—she had no idea what it might be, or how much it might cost—but that didn’t stop her overactive brain from supplying a litany of problems up to and including the death of the car, as well as the choice application of words she couldn’t use around her regular clientele.

The phone rang again, this time to tell her that the truck was on its way. There was no window in the back, so Beverly gathered up her purse, switched off the lights again, and went outside to wait. She wished she had worn a warmer sweater over her sleeveless dress. She was shivering by the time the tow truck pulled in. It tucked expertly back against her car, with just enough room to work separating the two.

Jimmy wasn’t driving. John Winchester hopped out with an all-business expression. “Cab’s nice and warm,” he offered. “Keys?”

She dug through her purse. The keys weren’t there. “Oh, shit,” she realized, she’d left them in the steering column, and then automatically locked the door when she exited. They were on a different ring than her work keys, so she hadn’t even noticed. “Dammit!”

“Not a problem,” John said, hands out to calm her. He opened the cab door and pulled a slim tool out from behind the seat. In about twenty seconds, he’d slid the snake in through the window and popped the driver’s door lock. He sank sideways into the bucket seat. 

“Won’t turn over at all?” he asked, since Beverly was still standing there dumbly.

“I tried a couple times,” she said, aware that her voice sounded higher and squeakier than normal, “and the third time, something went clunk.”

John’s eyebrows twitched up, but he grimaced back at her sympathetically. “Let’s take a look. Why don’t you go around and climb in the truck?” he repeated. “It’s warm.”

Beverly recognized that he was trying to give himself space to work without her hovering, but patronizing her wasn’t helping her calm down any. She was tired, hungry, flustered, and getting crankier by the second. To top it off, she couldn’t afford a big repair or—God forbid—a new car right now, to say nothing of the fact that Tom had been Tom’s. It was stupid to get so attached to a car. The worst part was getting upset with herself for letting it all get to her. But standing here and shivering while John triaged wasn’t going to help, either. She nodded and steered herself to the passenger side of the cab.

It was toasty. John had the radio turned to classic rock—not particularly her style, but certainly typical for their generation—and it looked like he’d cleaned up Jimmy’s usual mess of old coffee cups and junk food wrappers. She twisted in the seat to watch while John poked under Tom’s hood. It didn’t take very long before he was throwing the chains under the wheels to lift them with the crane. With the car secured, he climbed back into the truck. Beverly half-stood in the cab to untwist the skirt of her dress and face front.

“Well, you want the good news or the bad news?” he asked, pulling out the clipboard with his call sheet on it and filling out the paperwork.

“I’ll be able to play the violin again in no time?” Beverly quipped.

John grinned. “Only if you could before,” he returned, modifying the punch line.

“Bad news,” Beverly insisted. “And no sugar-coating, please.”

“All right,” John said, nodding in something like approval. “Well, the engine block cracked. And my bet would be the alternator has a short.”

“Jesus,” Beverly felt her face expand as it all hit. “How—”

“You get your car serviced at Garry’s?” he asked. He was observant; she hadn’t said anything, but Tom’s key chain had one of their fobs. 

“Yes. Regularly. I mean—isn’t that something they should have noticed?”

“Not necessarily,” John said mildly. “When was your last road check?”

“Every spring,” she said defiantly. “When they inspect it.”

John sniffed. “Eh, coulda developed since then. Been having trouble starting her when it’s cold?”

Yes. She remembered now, the trouble she’d had a few days ago, how she’d forgotten about the car after running into John in the restaurant. “I meant to get it in to Garry this week…dammit,” she said again. An engine block and an alternator did not sound like minor repairs.

John smiled sympathetically. “Well, the good news is, I’m working tomorrow.”

The little flirtatious lilt had crept back into his voice. He was trying to lighten the mood for her. She let it affect her. She returned it, feeling like a teenager by the lockers. “Why is that good news?”

“Because I can look at it for you personally. Make sure it gets fixed right.”

She grinned impishly. “And why is _that_ good news?”

He laughed. He had a good laugh—deep and honest without any jerking barks or wheezing, just a full and rich blanket of mirth.

“Seriously,” he told her, pulling out of the lot, “I’m a good mechanic. I’ll even check your repair history to make sure Garry isn’t stiffing you, if you want.”

“Why? I mean, not why would Garry want to rob me blind, why would you—”

John watched the road diligently. “The boys…they like you. You’ve got Dean halfway interested in English class and that’s an accomplishment.”

“So, strictly as a thank-you for doing my job?”

He smiled. Sammy was in that smile, all little boy and bashful. “Not…strictly.”

Nowhere in Dublin was that far from anywhere else. John pulled the truck in to Garry’s. “Just sit tight,” he said as he unbuckled his seat belt. “I’ll drive you home.” She stared out the window, thinking again about how bad the repair bill would be, even if John found something to hold over Garry. Which he wouldn’t, because Tom had been bringing their cars to Garry for years and Garry had always treated Beverly like royalty when she kept coming after Tom died.

An engine turned over. Beverly jumped, thinking somehow John had performed a miracle and fixed her car then and there. Instead, he was crossing the lot from a big black classic. Tom would have known what kind—she just knew it was American and looked like a late sixties model. He opened the driver’s door, leaned in, and shut off the engine. “Just cause I’m stuck with the tow truck don’t mean I gotta drive it around everywhere,” he told her. “Have you had dinner yet?”

“Don’t you…I mean, are Sam and Dean…alone?”

“They’re asleep. Or they better be,” he added with a frown. “Dean’s okay to babysit himself and his brother, though,” he continued, as if assuring her that there was no rush.

“Are you sure?” Beverly asked. “I’m starving.”

“I’m sure,” John said. He didn’t sound convinced, so much as uncompromising, as if Dean knew better than to dare otherwise. Beverly was about to back out, but John looked at her piercingly. “Where to?”

There were few options that time of night. Beverly wound up directing him to MacArthur’s Bar, just outside of Dublin. John ordered a longneck and Beverly decided to indulge in some red wine. 

“You always drink when you’re on call?” she teased, though there was an edge to it she tried to eliminate.

John snorted. “One beer ain’t gonna touch me,” he said confidently. “Now, when I reach for the JD, that’s a bad night.” He seemed to realize he’d said something incriminating, because he looked at the ceiling behind her for a second. “Not that I’m…I mean, I’m not an alcoholic, or anything.”

Beverly nodded. He didn’t sound too defensive, more embarrassed, but she wasn’t sure whether or not to believe him. “You can stop anytime you want to?” she surmised.

John recognized the quote, but shook his head to deny the suggestion. “No, there are times I definitely should have stopped. Mostly when I was a lot younger, though.”

Beverly laughed, releasing some of the tension from the conversation. “Oh, I hear that,” she agreed. “I remember this one time in college when we got so drunk we decided to move the statue of William Henry Harrison from the library to the President’s lawn.”

John sniggered with her. “When I turned 18, my buddies decided to get me my first legal drink—like there was a drinking age in Ho Chi Minh—and they got me so blasted,” he sawed his hand sideways for emphasis. “They poured me back into the barracks, but I must have got up in the middle of the night. I dunno, I think—well, they told me I _said_ —I was looking for the latrine. I wound up in our CO’s hut.” He paused, remembering. “Lucky for me, he was a pretty understanding guy. And he wasn’t in bed at the time.”

Beverly’s eyes widened. “Oh, my—you didn’t—”

“Nope. A friend in my platoon, he heard me and woke up a couple of the guys. They caught up with me just as I was about to climb in.”

“So—no actual damage, then?”

“Well…the CO wasn’t in bed,” John said with an impish wink. “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t anyone else in it at the time.”

Beverly swallowed quickly before she choked. “Oh, shit!” 

“Yeah, exactly. CO had a little action going with a local girl. She didn’t even wake up when I came in, wasn’t until the others arrived she even realized I wasn’t Capt. Nelson crawling in beside her.”

“So…what did he do? When he found out?”

John grimaced. “Oh, he saw us crossing the compound on the way back. The guys ‘fessed up on the double—which was a good thing. All I got was perimeter and mine patrol for about the next month. But I heard from my pal Artie that Cap told our Lieu that even drunk off my ass, I had balls for days.”

Beverly went back to something he’d said earlier. “So…if you turned 18 in Vietnam, then you enlisted? You weren’t drafted?”

John swigged his beer and swallowed, sucking foam off the inside of his teeth. “Sure did. Before I saw for myself how fucked up the whole thing was.”

“What made you support it—do you mind if I ask?”

“I don’t mind,” John said with a shrug. “Guess I didn’t know any better. I mean, my old man was a dyed-in-the-wool Republican, y’know? He was so proud that he’d voted for every Governor of Kansas since ‘37, except Huxman and Docking. Man supported Dewey, Eisenhower, Nixon—so what if their policies did nothing for small farmers?” He shrugged again. “I’m sure you see it all the time: ignorant parents; ignorant kids.”

“But you changed your mind?” Beverly asked, leaving the accusation alone.

“Marines changed my mind, first. Then ‘Nam. Then Mary.” His eyes hooded over as he studied the table. But really, he wasn’t looking at anything so close as the wooden surface. Beverly waited while John composed himself. He sighed. “Anyway, yeah. Dad was always talking about Korea and how important it was to free the world from Communism—so okay, I figured I’d sign up for the GI bill and finish when I got home.”

“Which is why you’re a mechanic.”

John’s eyes flicked back up to her. Nothing else about him moved. Beverly shivered and felt flushed at the same time. There was dangerous, raw energy in those brown depths.

“Nah,” he said after a couple seconds. He shook his head and with the motion, the intensity faded, as if he had decided to let her remark roll off instead of penetrate. “Nope. Mary’s why I’m a mechanic.”

“How does that work?” Beverly leaned forward, fascinated.

“Got back, spent some time on base in California. Re-acclimating, you know.” She nodded. “I met Mary at a dance or a social…I don’t remember. But I decided pretty soon after that that I’d better get some money together quick, if I wanted to have…something to offer her.”

“How old-fashioned,” Beverly said. She made no attempt to hide how charming she found it, either.

John snorted. “Practical, more like it. She’d gone to UCLA and was trying to break into films, so she didn’t have anything herself—just an elderly uncle and aunt—and my old man died in debt while I was deployed. Didn’t see the point wasting what little I’d saved up on a degree. I got in touch with one of my dad’s old buddies, had a garage back home.”

“And you brought…Mary back with you?”

John nodded, looking through the walls all the way to whatever Kansas farm had been his cradle. “I didn’t mean to, right away. But when I laid out the plan, asked her to wait—”

“She was impatient,” Beverly concluded. “I kinda know the feeling. Tom and I spent almost two years apart, waiting for each other.”

“How’d that happen?”

“Oh, it was back in school,” she explained. “He was finishing up his degree at OSU and my MLS program was in Chicago. It sucked.” She decided not to mention that the “degree” was Tom’s doctorate in Civil Engineering and that he’d already completed a master’s in Architecture at the time. She didn’t think he’d be intimidated, but it seemed unnecessary to throw it in John’s face. John may not have had the opportunities Tom had had, but they shared a practical view of life, a ruggedness and grit, and a similar sense of humor. John wasn’t educated, but he was sharp as a knife and twice as dangerous.

“Do you ever—” John started to say, but drifted from the question. “Well, anyway. My mother died right after Dean was born. Sneaky old bat had squirreled away about $20,000 in cash—never told anyone. We found it all cleaning out their house. And right about that time, my boss was looking to retire. One of the other guys and I, we went in together to buy him out.”

“And then came Sam?” Beverly asked. She thought she knew where this was going. John didn’t look like the kind of man to talk about himself much, which made her wonder how soon he would shut down again. She meant to find out as much as she could before that happened.

“Then came Sam,” John verified. And as if Beverly thinking it precipitated the event, he pulled himself back in, like shrugging into the leather coat he wore, like putting his armor back on. “Sorry. I’ve been talking too much. Aren’t we men supposed to be strong, silent, and let the women do all the talking?”

Rather than call him for hiding, or being sexist, Beverly played into the flirtation. “Ah, I was wondering when you’d remember to be curious about me,” she said with a wink.

“It’s not that I’m not curious,” John answered through a disarming laugh, “it’s…well, our landlady is, uh, Pamela Ryan?”

Beverly couldn’t contain her eyeroll and “Ah” of understanding. “So you already know more or less my life story.”

John grinned. “Well, not the early years—before you could talk or crawl.”

They both laughed.

“Seriously,” John continued. “She did say you’ve lived here since 1983, you’ve single-handedly transformed the children’s program at the library, and that you…lost your husband a couple years ago. I’m sorry.”

Beverly blinked back the mist in her eyes, keeping it from turning to real tears. “Me, too. Tom was a pretty awesome guy. You’d think an architect would be predictable and safe, but he was….” She shrugged, unable to put it into words.

“Sudden?”

“Congenital heart defect,” she said evenly. “He was jogging and—boom. They said it was pretty painless—as if that’s supposed to be a consolation.”

“It can be,” John murmured. Though his voice was soft, the words came out as a rebuke.

“Oh, God…I’m…I’m sorry,” Beverly said quickly. “I mean…I don’t know what happened to M—to your wife,” she amended. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay,” John said gruffly. Clearly, it was anything but.

“It’s not the pain or the lack of it,” Beverly explained. “It’s that we lose them too soon. Too young.”

John bit his lip. Shifting in his seat, he said, “I’ll drink to that.” He motioned to the waitress for another round.

They stuck to safer topics after that while they ate. Beverly didn’t worry about the second beer—somehow she had a feeling it would take a lot more than that to impair John. After the waitress cleared their plates and left the bill, they both reached for their wallets at the same time.

“I got it,” John told her.

“No, really—”

“I asked you to have dinner with me. And like you said, I’m old-fashioned.”

Beverly recognized being teased. “Oh, all right. Let me cover the tip, at least?”

“Deal.”

Beverly debated with herself all the way back to her house. In between providing directions to the two-story Georgian she and Tom had bought long before they could really afford it, she reminded herself that he needed to get home to his kids, that she still suspected he was an alcoholic or a neglectful parent—but no, she didn’t, really, not after talking to him for over an hour, not after getting to know Dean and Sam a little better, and learning that what was missing was their mother—and that probably neither of them needed something that might turn complicated. But it had been a long time since her last liaison and John was close enough that she could smell the leather of his jacket, the soap on his skin, and beneath that, the musk of man….

“You probably have to get home,” she said when he pulled into her driveway. 

John shrugged. “They’re okay. They’re fine.”

Beverly swallowed. “In that case, would you like to…come in for a bit?”

His voice was grainy and barely audible. “Yes.”

 

~*~NOW~*~

With Dean AWOL, Sam soon threw himself back into his other research—the kind he couldn’t do with his brother around. Dean’s tough guy act was tiresome, but that didn’t mean Sam had lost his enthusiasm—more like his desperation—to find a loophole, a dealbreaker, or some way to extend Dean’s expiration date, at least. He was so engrossed by the multiple windows and tabs on his laptop that he jumped when his phone rang.

It wasn’t Dean, but then he hadn’t expected to be drunk-dialed. The call itself wasn’t unexpected, though.

“Bobby?”

“Hey, kid. How ya doing?” Bobby said affectionately. 

Sam sighed in exasperation. “Fine, I guess. Thanks for calling back, man.”

“No problem. I guess I’m a little confused, though. Your daddy had a lot of stuff in that locker. What exactly did you find?”

Sam reached beyond his laptop for the folder on the table. He’d stored the little package in his duffel, where Dean was less likely to come across it. As he explained to Bobby, he dug in his bag for the box.

“So I found a box of our old school stuff, mostly, but there were these two items—a sealed envelope, and a small box. They’re both addressed to this woman—she was a librarian in Ohio, but I thought maybe—she might have been a specialist, or something.”

“What’s her name?” Bobby asked immediately.

“Mrs.—I mean, Beverly Kirkland,” Sam told him.

Bobby chewed the name under his breath for a minute. “Kirkland—no, I never heard of a—wait. Did you say Ohio? You’re in Columbus?”

“Yeah, we’re in Plain City. She lives in Dublin—which, I know, it’s a hunt in her backyard, but—”

“Kid. She’s not a hunter,” Bobby pronounced apologetically.

“No, Bobby, I know—I thought maybe she did research, analysis—”

“Sam,” Bobby said, sounding tired and regretful, “I’m sorry, Sam, but she doesn’t have anything to do with hunting. Fact is, John—” he broke off, cleared his throat. “I dunno if you want to hear this.”

“Bobby, it’s okay,” Sam said with a little laugh. “I know they were, uh, close,” he finished, feeling his face get a little red. “You’re not gonna shock me with that one.”

Bobby grunted. “Ain’t what I meant. Okay, sorta. No. The fact is, when you and your brother were little, there was a hunt that scared your daddy real bad. Bad enough…he thought about quitting.”

It took a moment for Bobby’s meaning to sink in. “Quit hunting? Our dad?” Sam said, incredulously. Dean had said the shtriga had freaked Dad out, but Sam didn’t think even Dean suspected it had almost ended their father’s hunting days.

Bobby sighed. “Yeah. Tell ya the truth, times I wish he had. You ‘n’ Dean mighta…. Well, anyway,” he continued, leaving whatever he was going to say, possibly out of respect for the dead, or maybe for Sam’s sensibilities. “He cut way back for, oh, I reckon about six months. Just taking stock, seemed like.”

“But Mrs. Kirkland—she had something to do with it, too?” Sam pressed. Now that Bobby had admitted knowing more of John’s secrets, Sam was thirsty to find out more about them.

“Indirectly, I think, yeah. Sure didn’t hurt.”

Sam blinked. The confirmation came as a surprise. “Well, uh, I mean…were they…serious?”

Bobby made a grumpy noise between disgust and laughter. “Boy, what makes you think your daddy and I were girlfriends? Why would he tell me his intentions? What was I gonna do about it—pass a note to her in class?”

Sam ducked his head as if Bobby had taken a swat at him, from 1,300 miles away. “Yeah, Dad never was one for baring his soul.”

“You can say that again. Besides, y’all hit the road again, didn’t you? That ought to tell you what you need to know.”

Sam laughed. “Right. Sorry. Yeah, I remember it, kinda. Dad left right around New Year’s and then pulled us out after Dean’s birthday.”

“Sounds right.”

“Bobby. I mean…d’you think Dean’s…. D’you think we should take this stuff to her?”

Bobby didn’t answer right away. Sam chewed his lip, waiting. It was odd how talking to Bobby always made him feel about ten, no matter that Bobby had never talked down to either him or Dean in all Sam’s recollection. He was as close to their dad as they had left—in many ways, as close to a father as they’d _ever_ had—and while he knew he could bring anything to Bobby, any problem, and they’d face it like men together, talking to Bobby made him feel…safe. Protected, like he’d been when they were kids. It was like having Bobby meant neither he nor Dean had to make all the tough decisions alone, or even at all. Like…they could do what he always accused Dean of doing, just following orders. 

Only from Bobby, it felt more like advice, guidance, than the Law of Winchester.

Finally, Bobby drew breath. “Sam…what’s really goin’ on, son?”

He hadn’t realized until the words left Bobby’s mouth, how much he’d wanted to hear something like them. Hear the invitation, hear the concern, hell, hear the _love_ that John had been so sparing with Sam’s whole life “I told you, Dean—he’s dead set against going to give this stuff to her. To Mrs. Kirkland.”

“You could drop it in the mail, y’know,” Bobby said, but even he sounded like he could tell all the ways that was a bad notion.

“Yeah, we could, but…it was nearly 20 years ago. No explanation, no word about where Dad is now, or why…why he never came back.”

“I’m just sayin’, you want her to get the stuff, no reason you gotta announce yourselves, either.”

Sam grunted noncommittally. Bobby had a point; they’d questioned Dad’s old partner, Mike Geunther, without telling him who they were. “Gotta admit, I’m curious, though. Like you said, Dad wasn’t big on telling anyone his game plan.”

Bobby said nothing.

Sam sighed. “Yeah, you’re right. Fish or cut bait, right?”

“Sam, I can’t tell you what to do.”

“I know, Bobby. Believe me,” Sam said, though really he’d wanted exactly that. “I just dunno why Dean is so opposed to meeting up with her again.”

Bobby sucked his teeth. “Only one way to find out, kid,” he said. “And God help you. That brother of yours is almost as tight-lipped as your daddy was.”

“Yeah. Hey, Bobby—the deal—”

He heard Bobby shift position on the other side of the phone. “Sam, I told you before, I got nuthin’. Wish I did.”

“I know—that’s not what I was gonna ask.”

“Okay,” Bobby said, waiting for the suckerpunch.

“Has he…was there anything else to it, that you know of? Ever since it…. Ever since he killed the demon, he keeps asking me if I’m all right.”

“Well, Sam, you did die. I hate to burst your bubble, but you were—”

“I know, I know,” Sam said quickly to spare them both the memory. “There’s something else, though. It doesn’t feel like he’s just worried that I’m okay physically. It’s like he’s worried that I’m… _not_ okay.” Sam suppressed a shudder. His visions were gone, and good riddance. He hadn’t tried bending spoons, but then, the demon’s powers had never worked that way in the first place. Ruby seemed certain it was still in him, but he hadn’t made up his mind about believing her yet. He wasn’t even sure he believed her about saving Dean, and Dean sure wasn’t going to let him use her like he wanted to. It was a tricky enough prospect in the first place, but getting information out of Ruby without revealing anything to Dean about their mother and all her family…that was going to be next to impossible, anyway. But if Dean wouldn’t believe that the “Boy king” had lost his crown—thrown it away, really—Sam didn’t think he could convince him just by doing nothing. And he wasn’t sure that Dean’s doubts, as much as his fear of dying, wouldn’t drive a wedge between them for what little time they had remaining.

Bobby’s answer, when it came, sounded careful and calculated. “But you are feeling okay, right? I mean all that psychic stuff, it’s gone?” he asked first.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sam replied, trying not to sound annoyed.

“Well…give him a while to get that you’re not gonna go darkside on him. Sam, he’s spent most of his life worrying about you. Ain’t gonna stop overnight because the demon’s gone.”

Sam nodded, then remembered Bobby couldn’t see him. “You’re right.”

“Gotta admit, Sam, I was about ready to kill him myself for making that deal, even if I was glad to have you back. But when you consider what he’s looking in the face—”

“That’s just it, Bobby—he’s not looking it in the face—”

“Lemme finish, Sam.”

“Sorry.”

“I was gonna say, worrying about you? That’s his way of not worrying about himself.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed with growing agitation, “and that’s what bothers me, Bobby. He’s _not_ worrying about himself.

“Oh, Sammy,” Bobby said, sounding tired and sad again, and what was more: _old_. “Son, you know that just ain’t true.”

“Well, he’s not worrying enough to _do_ anything,” Sam complained, aware that he sounded like a whiny kid.

“Like what, Sam? What’s your brother supposed to do? Didn’t you say he told you that he can’t try to save himself or you die?”

Sam’s fire tamped down, doused by despondency. “Yeah.”

“So…I don’t see that he has too many options, son.”

“I know. Still, I wish….” He rolled his eyes. Wishing for Dean to treat himself with as much merit as anyone else was futile. Wishing for him to at least act normal, instead of the caricature version of himself where he always retreated when he couldn’t deal, that might happen, but whining about it to Bobby wasn’t going change anything. “Nevermind. I’m not done looking.”

“Neither am I, kid. But…it don’t look good.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about the job you boys are workin’,” Bobby said, both to change the subject and to refocus Sam.

Gratefully, Sam pulled out his papers and leafed through them. “Okay, so Lauren Kennedy disappeared from Cleveland, showed up five days later here in Plain City, outside of Columbus. She incited a bar fight and assaulted four truckers.”

“Five days? Cleveland and Columbus are only a couple hours apart,” Bobby observed.

“Yeah. Just before she went missing, a guy named David Owen, goes missing here in Columbus, winds up just outside of Cleveland, apprehended in the act of committing arson.”

“Someone’s making these people travel between Columbus and Cleveland and…commit crimes?” Bobby summarized. “Yeah, sure sounds like a demon to me. Was this guy also AWOL for about five days?”

“Yep. And the demon, if it is a demon, seems to be picking up his next victim right where he leaves the other, then going back and forth. So, we’ve got a suspect that Dean checked out this afternoon, Gareth Barker, reported missing yesterday.”

“Well, he’s gonna show up in Cleveland, maybe you two better head up there in the next day or so and see if you can find him. Why’s it taking him so long to be caught, though? I mean…it’s only about 100 miles, isn’t it?”

“Hundred and fifty, yeah,” Sam confirmed. “Thing is, I’m not so sure we can get ahead of this thing.”

“He’s giving you a heck of a lead time,” Bobby pointed out. “Where’s he going with all that extra time?”

“Dunno. Dean thinks we might be able to pick up a trail between one place and the other. But…well, maybe we just don’t have enough of a pattern yet. But Dean found sulfur in this guy’s place, so I think he’s probably our next victim.”

“Okay. Well, you know what to do. If you need anything else, call me.”

“Yeah. Will do. Thanks, Bobby.” Sam hung up. He stood and stretched, moving to the bed with the remote, in search of something to watch that wouldn’t make him think about where Dean was, or who he might have hooked up with that night.

 

~*~THEN~*~

John came up behind Beverly while she was splashing some whiskey into two tumblers. His breath, hot on her neck, was followed quickly by his arms circling her waist. She slammed the bottle onto the bar so she could fold her hands over his, leaned her head back in search of his shoulder. He bent his head to claim her lips and tongue with his.

Beverly twisted in his grip, turning to press herself into his chest, a knee finding its way between his legs. With an animalistic growl, John ground against her hip, gripped her tighter, kissed harder.

“I have…” Beverly murmured breathlessly, “um…stuff…bedroom.” It felt stupid to be embarrassed about it. “Condoms,” she forced out between kisses aimed under his jawline.

John nodded, smiling as if he expected something similar. He smoothed her hair with one hand, cupping the base of her skull to pull her in for another kiss. Then he stepped aside to let her lead him upstairs.

Beverly had dated a couple of men since Tom had died. She’d even indulged in a rather forgettable one-night-stand at a conference last year, which had left her guilty and crying at her own vulnerability. But that experience, anemic as it was, had at least shaken things loose a bit. She loved Tom no less for satisfying a primal need, and she didn’t regret the occasional liaison one bit. She hoped John would feel the same way about his Mary.

Certainly, he held nothing back in the bed department. Their coupling was more desperate than languorous, but no less passionate for that. Afterward, he stroked her hair absently while she lay in the crook of his shoulder. She could tell the moment his brain booted itself back up. Like the computer system they were just beginning to use to build the library’s catalog, his thoughts vibrated with a virtual hum. She decided to give him a graceful exit, if that’s what he wanted.

“John,” she said gently, as one would talk to a skittish horse, “I think you’ve left your boys alone long enough. Even if they’re asleep.”

He drew a long breath, and Beverly could feel his body along hers tense up again, a stretch that also had the effect of putting up his shields. Again, Beverly was reminded of a medieval knight donning his armor. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely on the exhale. “I should get going…. Morning soon.”

“Morning now,” Beverly pointed out in a light banter, “but it’ll be light shortly.” She shifted onto her side, lifting off his arm so that he could rise. Though the room was dark, his skin picked up what little light came through the window shades. She watched his muscular back and arms as he withdrew his heat to sit up on the edge of the bed.

He found his clothes piecemeal—a sock, his t-shirt, one shoe, the plaid workshirt he’d been wearing over the tee, the other sock and shoe, jeans, and his briefs last, typically. He sat back down and started to dress.

Beverly could sense him slipping into guilt.

“John. You’re thinking too much,” she told him directly.

He flinched and looked at her like he’d forgotten she was awake. “Hm?”

“Stop thinking about it. Well,” she smiled impishly, “ _think_ about it, if you like, but—” she ran a hand down his arm, smoothing his t-shirt sleeve over his corps tattoo—”don’t work yourself into a tailspin over it.”

John’s eyes shone as they swept up to the corner where wall met ceiling in thought. “‘S that what I’m doing?”

Beverly nodded. “Mm-hmm. You’re having second thoughts, now that it’s too late to change your mind.” She sat up against the headboard, reaching for a nightshirt to keep warm.

John said nothing until he finished dressing. Again, Beverly was struck by how his actions seemed to clothe his emotions as well, how he seemed to prepare for battle as much as to go home. Boots laced and tied, shirt in place, he twisted toward her. One knee bent and flopped on the mattress; the other foot stayed anchored to the floor.

“You’re right. This…this was probably a mistake.”

“I don’t think so,” Beverly assured him with a shake of her head. “Look, I don’t expect to hold a candle to your wife. No offense, but you’re nothing like my Tom, either.” Which was not, strictly speaking, true—but true enough. Tom had been thin where John was beefy, taller than John, but not as filled out, but they’d shared a certain wit and passion. In Tom’s case, it had been covered by kindness; in John’s, by a rough exterior and a fierce magnetism almost like obsession. 

“But the way I see it,” she continued, “we can be lonely and alone or lonely together.” She drew her knees up, crossed her arms across them. “I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s easier to get through the night when you can hold on to someone else now and then.”

John’s eyes closed. He took a cleansing breath and when he opened his eyes again, he nodded. His lips duck-billed in a frown. “Yeah. It is, but—”

“Don’t worry about it. Did you have fun?”

John smiled engagingly. “Sure did,” he purred.

“So did I,” Beverly told him warmly. “So we’re good. Go on home. I’ll see you at the library.”

John laughed once and shook his head.

“I won’t see you at the library?”

“No, you will,” John answered. “But I’ll call you before that.”

Beverly shrugged. “Look, don’t think I expect—”

“Your car,” he reminded her. “I’ll call you to tell you what’s wrong with your car.”

Beverly laughed. “I completely forgot!”

 

~*~NOW~*~

Dean stumbled back in sometime before dawn. Sam heard him, but kept his back turned away from the bathroom light and the sound of Dean undressing.

The next morning, Dean looked like crap, but he said he was hungry, so they found breakfast. Sam said, “The five day gap thing, it’s bothering me.”

“Yeah, got any ideas?” Dean muttered, leaning back in the booth until the waitress came back with coffee.

“Besides running up to Cleveland and waiting, yeah. I think we should see if we can get in to the police databases and see if anyone fitting Gareth Barker’s description has committed any crimes in the last couple days, anywhere between here and Cleveland.”

“Sounds good,” Dean said. “What do you figure…hit the library?”

“Yeah.” He eyed the way Dean was holding his head. “I’ll drive.”

But Sam didn’t bring them to the local branch. Instead, he drove north, taking advantage of Dean’s continued lethargy in the passenger seat to follow his instincts. The Dublin Library looked much as he remembered it. 

He briefly debated letting Dean sleep in the car while he went inside, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d be, and he was a little worried that if Dean woke and realized where they were, he’d drive back into Columbus and leave Sam stranded.

“Dean,” he said, tapping Dean’s arm lightly to wake him up.

Dean snuffled, but opened his eyes unwillingly. “Huh?”

“Figured we should use a computer that’s not nearby,” Sam said. He knew Dean wouldn’t buy it for a second, but it gave him an opportunity to not get in a snit if he didn’t want to.

It didn’t work. Dean took one look at the building and his jaw tightened. “Sam, goddammit, I told you we’re not doing this.”

“Dean. Seriously, man. What is your problem?”

Dean clenched his fist, pounded it on his knee, but said nothing. He opened his door and got out. Sam climbed out on his side. “What, Dean?” he demanded. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“It’s none of our business, Sam!” Dean exploded. “Whatever was going on here, it’s over. It’s buried. You’re not going to do her any good opening it up. And it’s sure not going to get us anywhere.”

“You think that’s why I want to do this?” Sam said quietly. “Dean, that’s not what this is.”

“Well then, what?” Dean asked angrily.

“What’s in that letter, or not in it…Dad wanted her to have it. I mean, yeah, I’m curious, but you’re right, man. It’s none of our business. But it is our business to give her whatever it is. I just don’t know why it bothers you so much.”

Dean folded his hands on the roof of the car, thinking. Sam waited. “I just can’t imagine she’d ever want to see us again,” he said after a minute, sadly. “I mean…whatever was between her and Dad, it’s over. Was over a long time ago, Sam. Besides, it’s….” He trailed off. “Whatever. We’re here now; let’s just…just give it to her. But we don’t say who we are. We just deliver the note, tell her he left it to her, and we leave. Then let’s get back to the case.”

Sam sighed. Even if Dean was telling him the whole truth, which he suspected not, he recognized that his brother was offering a temporary cease-fire on the matter. “Okay,” he agreed.

They went inside. Sam was hit by a wave of memory; the library had barely changed. The circulation desk was still in the same spot, and aside from a bank of public access computers and online catalog stations, the stacks were in the same places, the reference section to the left of the entrance, the children’s section in the back on the right. Dean headed off to Reference, muttering about what a waste of time Sam’s errand was. 

Sam wandered to the right, toward the small round table and the activity room beyond it. He recognized her immediately. She barely looked any older, just a little around the eyes and the jaw, and her hair had a few grey strands. Beverly Kirkland was sitting at the table with a preteen girl and a stack of books.

“Cornelia Funke, Holly Black…” she was saying to the young lady. “Here. Try _War for the Oaks_ by Emma Bull.” She handed over a thick paperback. 

Sam loitered by the desk. Beverly’s customer accepted her recommendation and took it over to circulation (apparently that much had changed), and Beverly smiled at him with a familiar expression. “Can I help you?” she asked. Though she appeared completely willing to provide customer service, it was also clear that she was bemused by the presence of a single man in her section.

“Oh, no,” Sam said to dispel the notion that he was in the wrong place, “I’m not looking for a book. But…you are Beverly Kirkland, right?” he asked, assuming a professional air.

“Yes…Do I know you?” she asked. Her brown eyes shone with mirth.

“No. I—”

“Wait. I do know you…. Oh my God. Sam? Sam Winchester?” she said, eyes widening. “It is, it is you, isn’t it?”

Sam was caught too off-guard to stick with the cover story he’d prepared. “Yes,” he admitted.

Beverly shook her head at him. “God, I never thought I’d see you boys again. How’s Dean?”

“He’s…fine,” Sam supplied noncommittally. He didn’t volunteer that he was in the library. Or that he was about as far from fine as it was possible to get.

“And your father?” she asked, much more cautiously.

Sam swallowed. He shook his head slightly. It was way harder to tell her than he’d anticipated. “He…he, uh….” He clenched his jaw, shook his head again.

“Oh.” Beverly sank heavily into her chair. “Oh, Sam. I’m…I’m sorry, Sam. When? How?”

“Uh, about a year ago. He uh…he had a heart attack,” Sam continued softly. “We were…Dean and I were cleaning out some of his stuff and I found this.” He reached into his satchel for the envelope and the box. “He addressed them to you.”

He held out the parcels. Beverly’s hand trembled as she reached out to accept them. She stared at her name in Dad’s writing, but made no move to open the envelope. She looked up at him with a loud intake of breath.

“I’m sorry…I’m forgetting my manners completely. What are you doing these days? Did you settle around here?”

“Oh, no, but I had some business in Plain City, so—”

“And you’re staying there? Do you have a hotel?”

“Uh, yeah. Just for a couple days.”

Beverly sniffed. “Nonsense. If you came all this way to bring this to me, the least I can do is give you a home cooked dinner.”

Sam glanced over to the reference section. Dean was going to go ballistic. “No, really, that’s—”

“I insist. That is, if you’re free?”

Sam considered taking the excuse she offered and flat-out refusing to spend more time with her. Dean had a point about maintaining distance: She might ask too many difficult questions; she could pose a threat if she decided to report them to the authorities; she could even interfere (unintentionally) with the case. On the other hand, she represented a significant source of information about their father, and a period in their lives that Sam couldn’t access any other way. He looked across the library again for a visual on Dean. 

This time, Beverly noticed his scan, and she turned to follow his eyes. “Are you…here with someone?”

“Uh…” Sam tried to think of a suitable cover story. But just then, Dean appeared. He’d been chatting up a young lady, predictably, and as he came out from the newspaper racks, he caught sight of Sam and waved.

The movement drew Mrs. Kirkland’s attention. “Is…is that Dean?” she asked, pointing in astonishment. “You’re both here?”

Sam nodded, helpless, while Dean strode toward them. “Yeah.”

“Well that settles it—”

“Scuse me, ma’am,” Dean said, using his voice of authority, variation four: charming, “I need to steal Special Agent Skinner away for—”

“Dean!” Mrs. Kirkland exclaimed with a bit of a laugh. “My God, it’s good to see you both. I was just trying to convince Sam to let me cook you a dinner. Now I’m not going to take ‘No’ for an answer.”

Sam was prepared for Dean’s look of betrayal. He answered it with one that he hoped said, “Don’t blame me, it’s not my fault.” Aloud, he said, “I was just telling her that we have…business in Plain City, so as kind,” he continued, smiling at her, “as your offer is, we really do have to—”

“Your business,” she said, looking from Sam to Dean and back again. “What business brings you both to town?”

Sam began to stammer an answer, but Dean jumped in quickly. “Research, like Dad used to do. We’re following up on the book he was writing.”

“Ah. The book about local ghosts?”

Dean looked around shiftily. “About what?”

“Your father…his research. It was all on supposedly haunted houses.”

Dean smiled, then his smile faltered. Sam stepped back in. “Mrs. Kirkland…how much did our dad tell you about what he did?”

“Next to nothing,” Mrs. Kirkland said cheerily, “but I did notice that he profiled and visited the Johnson House, the old Gabriel farm, and even Franklin Castle up in Cleveland.”

Sam shrugged ever so slightly at Dean. He’d been the most concerned with being discovered by Mrs. Kirkland; it was up to him to decide how to play it now that she had not only recognized them, but she was brushing up against their real vocation.

But the moment’s distraction was all Dean needed to build up a cover story. “Yeah, Dad was fascinated by that stuff. But…we’re more interested in, uh, in true crime, stuff like that.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “I didn’t think the hauntings had a criminal history.”

“Oh, you’d be surprised,” Dean said through a confident wink. “Anyway. We were in the neighborhood, like Sam said, but we should—”

“Use the library, like we came here to do,” Sam said impulsively. “But maybe tomorrow, we could…come back.”

Dean looked over to him sharply. Before he could protest, Mrs. Kirkland said, “Great! How long are you in the area?”

“Probably a couple days….” Sam heard himself saying, while Dean looked at him as if to will him to lie.

“Okay, well, no sense staying in a hotel. I have guest rooms just waiting to be used.”

Dean looked horrified. The thought of having to play houseguest to a woman they hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years, and of whom Dean was apparently petrified, spelled some fairly easy torture for him. It was an opportunity to find out more about their dad, but more importantly, it was a chance to pay Dean back for some of the crap he’d been pulling lately since the deal went down with the demon. 

It was probably that, more than any other reason, that made Sam say, “That’d be great, Mrs. Kirkland.”

 

~*~THEN~*~

John didn’t call, and Beverly didn’t see him again right away. Garry called her instead, to tell her that her car was fixed, and sent Jimmy to bring her to the shop. John’s car wasn’t in the lot.

“Winchester?” Garry said when she asked. “Yeah, he fixed your car, but then he had to go get his kids or somethin’. Why—he give you any trouble, Mrs. Kirkland?”

“No—he was great,” Beverly replied, suppressing her blush. “Very professional,” she added coolly.

“Good,” Garry said, luckily oblivious to her embarrassment. “Never know with new guys….”

Beverly was pleased to see that the bill was fairly affordable.

The next day, Dean and Sam came to the library, but John didn’t come in; Dean made Sam come with him to wait by the front door for their father. It wasn’t until the following day, Thursday, that she laid eyes on John again.

Sammy had been going through the library stacks as if he had a time limit in which to read as much as possible. While he went after the Guinness Book record for “most books read in a month,” Dean flipped through magazines and rarely allowed himself to browse the novel racks. That Thursday, he had spread out his homework at the table when Sam came up to him with an armful of books. Dean looked at the pile dismissively.

“You can’t get that many at once, Sammy,” he said with a snort.

“I know. There’s five for me and five for you. You can get a card, Dean.”

“Dude, we’re here all the time. Get the others when you bring the first bunch back.”

“But Dad said to get enough for the whole weekend—”

“Yeah. And you know you’re not gonna have that much time to read over the weekend. Three or four ought to be plenty.”

“In the car, I will!” Sam said petulantly.

Dean rolled his eyes. Beverly stepped in before he could escalate. “Quiet in the library, please,” she said sweetly. “Did I hear you’re going somewhere this weekend?”

Dean shook his head no, but Sam nodded. His bangs fell over his eyes with the motion.

“Anyplace fun?”

Both of them shrugged. “Dad wants to take us shooting,” Sammy said proudly. “Target practice inna woods.”

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean muttered, jaw clenched.

Sam crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. He pouted at Dean, but clammed up.

“Well,” Beverly said, still concerned more with the peace of her library than John’s parenting choices, “why don’t you take some of the longer books you’ve got here—that way you maximize your page count.”

Dean snorted. “Maximize.”

Beverly laughed, too. “It’s the law of diminishing returns. It means looking for ways to get the most bang for your buck.”

Dean grinned. “We’re gonna get bucks with bangs, all right,” he said. Then he and Sam both giggled.

“Thought libraries were quiet zones,” a gravelly voice behind them observed dryly. 

Beverly startled, but luckily the boys didn’t notice her reaction because they were too busy jumping out of their seats.

“Dad!” 

“Hey, boys,” John greeted them back. Over their heads, he nodded at Beverly with amusement in his eyes. 

She smiled, but quickly tempered her expression. “Mr. Winchester,” she said evenly. “I was just going to recommend that Sam take out a couple longer books, particularly if you’re going on a road trip this weekend.”

“Road trip?” John put his hand on Sam’s shoulder.

“Sam told her we’re going shooting,” Dean tattled.

“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Yeah, we’re heading to a buddy’s cabin for a couple days.” He glanced down at Dean sternly. “Look alive, bud—we got some work to do still tonight. I want you to take your brother to the men’s room, come straight back here, and get your stuff together.”

Sam pointed to his books, but before he could say anything, John said, “I’ll take care of these, Sam.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out his library card.

Dean tugged on Sam’s arm to drag him away from his pile of treasure. When the boys had moved off a few paces, John turned to Beverly.

“Look, I’m sorry I haven’t called,” he said without any prompting.

“It’s okay,” Beverly told him earnestly.

“Car running all right?” he asked, his eyes sliding to the center of the library and the two small figures heading for the men’s room.

“Yes. Fine. And Garry only charged me a leg—I take it you used some form of extortion on my behalf?”

John grinned, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “Didn’t need to. A lot of the labor charge on older cars is from the diagnostic. I already figured out what was wrong, so.” He shrugged. “Plus your alternator turned out just to need the belt tightened and a little bit of tuning. The rest didn’t take long.”

Beverly nodded, finding herself smiling stupidly. “Well, thanks. So, big weekend planned?”

John drew a breath and twisted back to the table for Sam’s books. “Yeah, I thought I’d get the boys their hunting licenses this year,’ he said lightly, “but I want to make sure they have a little more experience in the woods before we go out with a lot of other people around. Safety.”

Beverly pulled her lips in between her teeth. She had learned that with the Appalachian/Ozark populations around the town, many of her clientele’s families had a much more intimate relationship with firearms than made her comfortable—and many of them passed it on early, especially to their boys.

“I guess the terrain here’s a lot different from Oklahoma,” she offered instead, by way of small talk.

But John’s head snapped up; walls slammed in place. He squinted at her suspiciously. “How did you know—”

“Dean was doing a project for school; he said that’s where you spent part of the summer.”

“Did he say anything else? About the rest of the summer or anything?” John asked brusquely.

“Well…no,” Beverly said cautiously. She wasn’t sure why John was angry with Dean over telling her what they’d done on vacation, but he was. Probably it fed back into the reasons they’d moved here in the first place. She didn’t elaborate, waiting to see what he would do.

She could see John go through the stages of forcing himself to relax. He breathed in and slouched a little, seemed to remember the books in his hand, offered them to her without even looking at them. Beverly accepted them for a gesture of peace, unsure why there had been any need for it. John stood a little too close to the desk for her to go between to get to her checkout setup. Rather than back away to the other side, or go the long way around the table, she pushed into his space. She pressed herself against the desk, leading with the books, making it clear that she was just doing her job. 

“Will there be anything else?” she asked primly, eyes flashing a dare.

John grunted in the negative and backed up half a step, just enough to let her squeeze by. As she cleared him, he muttered very softly, “I’d like to see you again, though. Without the books.” 

His voice had that gravelly, half-whispered, low frequency that went right to her gut. Beverly shuddered. “When you get back,” she told him. “Call me.”


	3. Part Three

~*~NOW~*~

“Jesus, Sam,” Dean complained as they packed, “of all the stupid ideas you’ve ever—”

“It’s not that dumb,” Sam countered. “It keeps us from using up the credit cards, drops us off the trail for a bit. It’s not like we’ve never done this before. Besides, aren’t you even a little bit curious?”

“Curious?” Dean parroted, his lip curling and nose scrunching up as if he smelled something bad. “Curious about what?”

“About…Dad. And Mrs. Kirkland.”

Dean smirked. “Oh, Sammy,” he said, circling the bed to swat playfully at Sam’s arm. “I thought you already knew how that stuff worked. See, when a man and a woman feel uncontrollable lust, they—”

“Shut up, you jerk,” Sam said, making no attempt to mask his irritation. “I mean important stuff.” 

“There was no important stuff, okay? It was just sex. He didn’t—” Dean broke off abruptly, backed away between the beds. He crossed back to the other side and resumed shoving jeans and shirts into his duffel.

“Didn’t…what, Dean?”

“Nothin’,” Dean bit out forcefully. It was the tone he used to shut down any uncomfortable outburst, any point at which he might admit to a feeling. “Whatever, man. You want to walk down memory lane, fine. We’ll go, make the old b…broad happy.” He stumbled over “broad,” as if deciding, out of respect, to choose the less derogatory, if old-fashioned, term. “But just remember—she’s already pretty close to the truth.”

“Because she thinks Dad was fascinated by haunted houses?” Sam squinted to match the “what the hell” of his voice. “Dean, how is that different from cover stories we’ve given dozens of people over the years?”

Dean sniffed. “It just is. She’s nosy. And she’s a librarian, okay? So just…we gotta be careful, is all I’m sayin’.”

“Okay,” Sam agreed, “we’ll be careful.”

“And hope she doesn’t watch _America’s Most Wanted_.”

Sam snorted. “Dude. You are so not on Walsh’s hit list.”

“Hey, you never know,” Dean said, grinning with forced levity. “Dream big, Sammy!” He pulled a few button-down flannel work shirts out of the closet. “I been thinkin’, though—tomorrow, we should go up to Cleveland. If the pattern’s right, Barker will be showing up soon.”

They had left Mrs. Kirkland to use the reference section according to Sam’s original plan. He had reasoned that a public computer would be less conspicuous when he hacked the state police database in search of Barker’s car, any hints of where he might be on the way to Cleveland. He successfully penetrated the database, but he hadn’t found any evidence that Barker was anywhere on the planet, much less Interstate 71.

Sam nodded, scratching his chin. “Okay, yeah.” The joking and the return to shop talk were Dean’s way of burying the argument, making peace, making it about the job instead of them, their issues. Sam let him drop the debate in favor of the case. “It’s only a couple hours. We can go, see what we can find. Maybe someone’s reported his car or something. It’s a long shot, though.”

Dean shook his head. “I was thinking we’d hit the campus. Y’know, where Lauren disappeared? You said he’s picking up his next victim in the same area each time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sam allowed, tottering his head in assessment. He was careful not to dismiss any contribution Dean made at this point, to maintain the balanced footing they’d just regained. “But by the same logic, we should check into the neighborhood where David Owen set those fires.”

Dean moved into the bathroom for a last recon. “Okay, so campus, fire scenes, DMV—hat trick,” he said, his voice echoing a little on the tile. He came back out with the soaps and shampoo bottles to throw them in the dop kit. “What?” he said to Sam’s hands coming off his hips, fingers spreading. “Dude,” Dean justified himself, “she’s probably got some girlie shampoo.”

Sam held up his hand, then released it in a forward wave. “Whatever.”

“Hey, you’re gonna have to make sure we got a secure place to work with the files and all,” Dean pointed out. In typical form, once he’d committed to their course of action, Dean was growing steadily more at ease with it. “Ooh, Sam—d’you think she’ll make that chicken stuff? What was it….”

“Tetrazini?”

“Yeah. That stuff was good. You know what else she made that was good? Her mac and cheese, man.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Gimme a break,” he begged no one in particular.

 

~*~THEN~*~

Beverly was washing dishes when her phone rang. Hardly anyone called her after 10, except her sister in California, who could never seem to remember that Beverly was three hours ahead, not two. She picked up the phone, expecting to hear Celia’s voice.

“Hello?”

“Hey, it’s John,” he said in that dusky rumble.

“John,” Beverly repeated, aware that she sounded as surprised as she actually was, instead of cool and aloof like she’d have preferred. “I wasn’t sure you actually would call.”

She heard him exhale a half-laugh, half “hum” that registered her shot. “Not really a phone kind of guy,” he admitted sheepishly. “Listen, the, uh, the boys are asleep. Would it be all right if I…come over? Just to talk.”

Beverly smiled. He was both transparent and endearing. The smoke in his voice was already practically undressing her, but he didn’t want to seem disrespectful. “Sure,” she said nonchalantly, taking his request at face value for the moment. Then she remembered the state of her bed and bathroom. “Give me fifteen, twenty minutes?”

John said, “Okay. See you soon,” and hung up.

Beverly left the rest of her dishes and flew upstairs to straighten up. She didn’t think John would care if her bed hadn’t been made, but it seemed unfair and unsportsmanlike to leave her delicates hanging in the bathtub or her facial mask sitting on the counter. She ran a brush through her hair, too, laughing at herself for the vanity of it.

By the time she came back downstairs, she heard the rumble of John’s car in the driveway. The engine cut off. A few seconds later, she heard the door creak and shut, sounding comparatively loud on her quiet street. She opened the door before he could ring the doorbell.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” he said awkwardly, leaning on the doorjamb. 

Beverly remembered the legends. “Are you a vampire? You need to be invited inside?”

John blinked at her. She got the impression that he was suppressing his response. After a moment, he evidently decided to laugh off whatever he was going to say. “No, I’m not a vampire,” he purred, crossing the threshold. “But I’ll bite if you want me to.”

Beverly backed out of the way to let him come inside, chuckling low in her throat. “How about a drink first?” she asked, leading him to the living room.

“Oh, God, yes,” he said gratefully.

She poured and handed him a tumbler. They sat. John sipped his whiskey like he was rationing it, but said nothing.

“How was your weekend?” she prompted.

John sucked his teeth. “A lesson in futility,” he grimaced. “Dean…kid thinks he needs to get it right first try or he’s gonna disgrace me. And Sammy…Sammy thinks he knows everything already.”

“But…how long have they been shooting? They’re new to it, right?”

John merely shrugged. “Not the firearms so much as _everything_. How to light a fire, how to mark a trail, how to boil water—” He stopped himself. “You…don’t want to hear about that.”

It was Beverly’s turn to shrug. “If that’s what you want to talk about,” she offered.

John shook his head. “I, uh, should have called.”

“I said no strings, John.”

“They just…take a lot of time, y’know?” he muttered. “And energy.”

“So I hear from parents all over the county,” Beverly assured him. “Six and ten—those are difficult ages.”

“They’re _all_ difficult ages,” John grumbled.

“When did…. I mean, how long have you been on your own with them?” she asked gently.

“Five years, ten months, three weeks, six days,” he said flatly, looking at his watch, “and about sixteen hours.” He sipped his scotch, and through the burn of swallowing, he asked, “How about you? Your husband?”

“Tom?” she supplied. “Two years, three months, and about ten days,” she recited. “It doesn’t get easier; just more routine.”

“That’s for damn sure,” he agreed with a growl.

“But I don’t have the challenge of parenting, either. I expect that puts me at an advantage.”

“Did you want children?” he asked softly.

Beverly pursed her lips. “We’d talked about it,” she confessed, taking a drink. “But we weren’t…. We were still working on getting where we wanted to be. We’d bought the house about a year before, so…we were saving for a while, first.”

“And now?” John’s eyes slid in her direction. He had loaded the question, but Beverly wasn’t sure what answer would save her from the bullet.

“Now…I have the kids at the library. Maybe I’ll follow my mother’s advice and get a cat. I don’t know. But…no, I don’t think I want children anymore. Not if they can’t be Tom’s.”

John hummed in what Beverly took for approval. “Sometimes, I swear, that’s the only reason I haven’t left them to the wolves,” he said: “because they’re Mary’s.” He swallowed more whiskey. “No, that’s not true.”

“Of course not,” Beverly told him. “They idolize you.” And that was true—she’d seen the look on Sam’s face when John picked them up, heard Dean brag to other kids occasionally about his father, the hero.

John snorted. “Whatever it takes, I guess,” he said. He drained his tumbler.

“Refill?” she offered.

John shook his head. “Nah, I should…get back. Anyway. I just….” He trailed off, staring at something underneath her floorboards. “I’d like to call you again. Come over again. Sometime. If that’s okay.”

The corners of Beverly’s mouth twitched, but she kept her face mostly under control. So formal, yet so boyishly earnest. “Call whenever you like, John.”

He nodded his thanks and rose, so she walked with him to the door. Before she opened it, though, he turned swiftly and kissed her. Her mouth opened instantly and she leaned in to him. Strong arms wrapped around her back. He growled into her throat and she shuddered. “You don’t have to leave,” she invited.

“I do. God, I do,” John said, breaking away. “I wish I didn’t but I do.” He fumbled for the doorknob and backed onto the porch, where he tugged his jacket back into order. “Goodnight.”

 

~*~NOW~*~

Sam used the GPS in his phone to find Mrs. Kirkland’s house, since Dean didn’t remember how to get there. Her ancient car, which Sam did remember, was long gone, replaced by a shiny blue Corolla in the driveway.

“I’ve made up the guest beds,” Mrs. Kirkland told them after they brought their bags inside. “They’re still up the stairs, third door on the right, and the other one at the end of the hall.”

“I”ll go,” Dean volunteered immediately. Sam suspected he just didn’t want to be left alone with Mrs. Kirkland. Then again, knowing Dean, it was also all about picking out the better of the two rooms.

“Thanks again,” Sam said to cover Dean’s hasty exit.

“Please, you’re helping me to feel useful,” she said in response. “Come on in.” She turned and led the way to the kitchen, in the rear of the house. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to the grocery store too recently—I get used to not cooking when it’s just for me.” She opened the freezer. “Let’s see…I’ve got ground beef, some chicken…. Would you young men by offended by simple mac and cheese?”

Sam grinned. “I think Dean would love mac and cheese,” he assured her.

“Okay, then,” she said. Before pulling out the ingredients, she reached into the fridge and brought out a bottle of wine. “Or would you rather beer?” she asked, going to the drawer for the corkscrew.

“Uh….” Sam struggled with a polite answer.

Mrs. Kirkland wrinkled her nose at him. “Beer, huh? Like your dad.” She dug in the back of the fridge for some. “Don’t worry, I have a six-pack. I hope it’s not skunky.”

Sam twisted the top of the bottle she handed him and tipped it up for an experimental taste. It was darker than he was used to, but it went down cool and crisp. “Nope, s’good,” he said with approval.

Mrs. Kirkland looked relieved. She grabbed a pot to start the water for the pasta and filled it at the sink. “So, Sam…what have you and Dean been up to all this time? Where did you go to college?

“Uh…I got a scholarship to Stanford,” Sam said.

“That’s great!” She beamed at him, turning on the burner under the pot. “And your major?

Sam swigged the beer. “Well, I was going to go into law school. But….” She looked up. “Uh, my girlfriend was…killed.” It had been a long time since he’d said it. And now it felt like a lifetime ago. When was the last time he’d thought of Jess, even? Sam could barely remember. Realizing it felt like a kick in the chest.

“Oh my God, Sam. That’s awful.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed morosely. “So Dean and me, we’ve been on a road trip. And somewhere along the way we decided to start working on a book. Y’know, a kind of _Travels With Charlie_ meets _Time Life’s Unexplained America_ , or something.”

Mrs. Kirkland nodded, going back to the fridge for the butter and cheese. “So…how long have you been on the road?”

Sam thought about it. “A little more than two years.”

“All that time?” she asked, surprised.

“Well, I had just been planning to go back to school when…Dad passed away. I guess it’s just—not important anymore. Plus, Dean—” he stopped himself and put down the beer bottle heavily. “Do you…need any help with that?” he asked, to change the subject. Talking to her was dangerous. Dean was right. It was too familiar, too…comfortable, in her kitchen. He’d have to watch himself.

Luckily, Dean came in the room at that moment. “There you are,” he said, as if the house had grown an extra wing and he’d been looking through a neighborhood’s worth of rooms. “Catching up, are we?” He flashed a warning to Sam with his eyes.

“Little bit,” Sam replied, an answering plea to Dean to play it cool in his expression. “I was just telling Mrs. Kirkland about our roadtrip that never seems to end.”

“Beverly, please,” Mrs. Kirkland said.

“Uh-huh,” Dean observed coolly over her invitation to use her first name. He pointed to Sam’s longneck. “Hey, is there another one of those, or am I gonna have to claim the privilege of the older brother?”

“There’s more,” Mrs. Kirkland assured him. “Sam, would you?” Sam was closer to the fridge, sitting as he was on the island bar between the sink and the stove.

“Hey, your kitchen wasn’t like this back then, was it?” Dean asked more cordially as Sam slid off his stool and dove into the stainless steel appliance.

“No. I redid it about…two years ago?” Mrs. Kirkland mused. “Hard to believe it’s been that long.”

Sam banged his head on the fridge door in his surprise. Hadn’t he just been thinking the same thing about Jess? He rubbed the top of his head and handed Dean the beer over his brother’s chuckle.

The water started boiling, so she dumped in the macaroni and stirred it, turning down the heat. “So, Sam tells me he’s been taking time off from school. What about you, Dean?”

Dean looked sidelong at Sam. He popped the lid off his beer with his ring and took a healthy pull before answering. “Well, if you recall, I was never really the school type,” he said with a sniff. “Mostly I’ve been working freelance, here and there, kinda following in Dad’s footsteps.”

“As a mechanic, or an author?” she asked. “Or both?”

“Both,” Dean said with a nod. “Hey, Sammy, we should let Mrs. Kirkland work—”

“Beverly, and not at all, I like the company,” she said cheerfully. She turned back to the stove with a pan to melt the butter and cheese for the sauce.

“So…you didn’t ever remarry?” Sam asked politely.

“No,” she said smiling, shaking her head. “Never got a cat, either.” She stirred the macaroni again. Sam got the impression the cat comment was a private joke. “So tell me, fellas, what kind of true crime leads you to this neck of the woods?”

“Well…we’re doing…sort of an investigative piece right now,” Sam said, “on a case outside Columbus.”

“Investigation?” Mrs. Kirkland said. “So…you’re freelance reporters? This is an article? Or is it still for a book?”

“Book,” said Dean, right at the same time Sam said, “Article.” He and Dean locked eyes. 

“Well, we were hoping to sell the story first, but...it’ll be in the book, too,” Sam promised. “Speaking of which, we’re planning to drive up to Cleveland tomorrow.”

Mrs. Kirkland nodded. “Okay. Tell you what—I’ll give you guys a spare key. That way you can come and go as you please.”

Dean swallowed. “No, really, that’s—”

“It’s no trouble, Dean. I put you two up for what, about a month?” She poured a little wine into the sauce. “I think I can stand to have my house invaded for a few days.”

About an hour later, Dean was polishing off his third helping of mac and cheese, and Sam wondered if his brother remembered any of his own warnings about being careful around Mrs. Kirkland. Dean’s charm was dialed up to eleven. Luckily, he was so practiced at deflecting topics through half-truths and outright lies that Sam didn’t think Mrs. Kirkland even realized Dean was double-talking her. Still, a couple times Dean skirted too close to the ridiculous, and Sam had to pull him back from the edge.

After dinner, she said, “I have some work to do in the office, but you two help yourselves to the TV and all if you like.”

Sam said, “We’ll clean up,” with a look at Dean. If they weren’t paying for the room, or the food, it was the least they could do.

“Sure,” Dean agreed with the amiable brightness that meant he’d rather tongue an alligator.

“Nope—the new kitchen has a dishwasher,” Mrs. Kirkland said. “So if you’d like to rinse and stack, that’d be great. But don’t worry—I remember how much Dean liked housework.”

“Okay,” Sam shared her laugh at Dean’s expense. “Uh…do you have a wireless connection, by chance?”

She grimaced. “No. But my next door neighbor does. If you’ve got a card, his net isn’t encrypted.”

Sam looked at her like she’d just corrected Dean on the lyrics to _Quadrephenia._

“What?” she said, grinning impishly. “Did you think because I’m an old widow-lady librarian, I’m not above piggy-backing a wireless bubble?” She laughed and went to her office.

 

~*~THEN~*~

John called Beverly three days after he’d left her on her own doorstep, but he didn’t come over that night, either. They talked for about half an hour. The next night, he called again, and _did_ come over. Then she didn’t see him for a week.

At the library, Sam and Dean came in after school nearly every day. She treated them like all the other kids—according to their natures, needs, and her standards. She tried to keep questions about their father balanced: not so many that they thought she was stalking him, not so few that their absence was itself conspicuous.

One Saturday, John brought the boys in and, as in their first visit, left them in the children’s section while he wandered off to Reference.

“So, Dean, what’s your Dad doing over there, d’you know?” she asked casually.

Dean shrugged, but Sam said “Research,” as if it were the equivalent of crimefighting or surgery or some other profession.

“Oh?” she said, making sure to sound suitably impressed. “What kind of research?”

Sam bit his lip. Dean sighed. “Local history and stuff. He’s working on a book.”

“About what?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “About local history. Duh.”

“Yes, I got that part, thank you,” Beverly told him. “No need to be rude.”

“Sorry,” he muttered. He actually opened a book, as if to apologize.

“I meant, is there something particular he’s writing about? The Mennonite communities? Local legends? The Civil War or something more recent?”

“Oh.” Dean thought about it. “Nah. Just stuff.”

John came back two hours later. “Mount up, boys,” he said briskly. He handed Dean the keys. “Take your brother to the car, unless either of you need the head first.”

Dean beamed down at the keys in his hand. He grabbed Sam’s arm and began to drag him away, looking more at them than where he was going. “Do _not_ start the car, Dean,” John said at his son’s back.

The effect was instantaneous. Dean turned around. “Yes, sir,” he said crisply. The look on his face made Beverly remember what John had said about how Dean thought he had to get everything perfect on his first try. She saw it now, in his eyes: He was terrified his father would tell him he’d messed up.

John saw her watching the boy and dismissed him with another nod. Dean nodded back, and it looked to Beverly like he could have saluted military-style if not for her standing there observing. Dean turned and, with one hand on Sam’s shoulder, headed for the exit. John turned back to her and shrugged as if to acknowledge that Dean was a little irrational. But she detected a hint of exasperation in John, too, that went beyond simple bewilderment. There was a tension in him that he didn’t have with Sam, even when Sam was whining or questioning his father’s directive.

She let it go, though, in favor of other, more intriguing, information she wanted to know. “Dean says you’re writing about the local history?” she asked quizzically, casually. “It’s not a history of Wendy’s, is it?”

John huffed. “They would love that,” he said, eyes crinkling with laughter as he nodded toward his children, “but no.”

“Anything in particular?”

“Uh, yeah,” John said, one shoe tapping the table leg idly. “Architecture, mostly,” he rumbled. “I’m interested in the history of older buildings. Like the Johnson House.”

“The Johnson House out on Route 736?” she said. “Isn’t that supposedly haunted?”

John smiled teasingly. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” he asked, like they were both twelve and he was about to dare her to go ring the doorbell and run.

“Only when they look like Rex Harrison. Or James Caan,” she replied. “Think you’ll be free tonight?” she asked more quietly.

“Not tonight, no,” he said with regret. “But…maybe tomorrow?”

Beverly nodded an okay, and he winked at her before following his boys out to the parking lot.

Judith came running over the second he departed. “Bev! You never told me you and that guy—what’s his name?”

“Winchester,” Bevery supplied blandly.

Judith cocked her head with curiosity. “Is that what you call him in the throes of passion?”

“Judes!” Beverly hissed at her. “Honestly,” she continued nonchalantly, going to her chair, “it’s not what you think.”

“Oh, pshaw. He’s obviously interested in you. Do you expect me to believe you’re not going to take advantage of that opportunity?” Judith perched on the edge of Beverly’s desk. “Especially an opportunity in a package like that?” Judith fanned herself with a nearby catalog card. “I mean, if I weren’t married, I’d—”

“But he is, remember, Judith?” Beverly lied for no other reason than to keep Judith quiet and out of her hair. “Married, with kids. So sorry to disappoint you, but there will be no riding off into the sunset for me and John Winchester.” She snatched the catalog card out of Judith’s hand and filed it officiously.

“Okay, Beverly, okay,” Judith told her, standing up with her hands out, instantly contrite. “I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot.”

“Nothing’s bruised, Judith,” Beverly said, eyes cast heavenward.

“No, but…you like him, too. Don’t you?”

Beverly sighed. The last thing she needed was any of the other staff to send him signals that she was being indiscreet—or worse, for Sam and Dean to pick up on the flirtation between her and their father. They were great kids…but they weren’t _her_ kids. “Look, Judith. Whether I like him or not isn’t the issue, and forgive me, but it’s not any of your business, either. He’s a customer, and I’m his sons’ librarian. And that’s all.”

Judith nodded, clucking sympathetically. “Of course, Bev. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just…you know we all just want the best for you.”

Beverly gritted her teeth and blinked at Judith. Her coworker had always been presumptuous, but the blatant patronizing, the “poor Beverly” act, and the way every conversation somehow came back to how incomplete she must feel without Tom, had reached new depths. “I’m going to lunch,” she announced, because it seemed a better thing to say to Judith than, _Fuck off, bitch_. She stood up, took a couple steps away, and stopped. “Hey, Judes?” she said, feigning forgiveness.

“Yes, dear?” Judith smiled at her as if expecting an apology. Like Beverly was the one who should _be_ apologizing.

“Do you have any idea what he was researching all morning?”

Judith’s head rocked back a little on her neck when she parsed Beverly’s question. “Well, let me think…. He definitely wanted to know about the Johnson House—everything I could dig up on it, when it was built, everything about the Johnsons, like when and how Isaiah Johnson died….”

“What else? Anything about the architecture, or any other local historical sites?”

Judith narrowed her eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’m curious about whether he’s doing his older son’s homework for him,” Beverly bit out quickly. “Was it just the Johnson House or anything else?”

Judith’s eyebrows flicked upward, but she shrugged and drew back the corners of her mouth in an apologetic smirk. “This morning, it was all about the Johnsons. But he was in last night—you were off—and he checked out a book about Amish and Mennonite hex signs.”

Beverly frowned. It didn’t add up, but then, she knew how researching one thing could lead to a tangent, which led to another, until what started as an article on Ohio Valley settlers could turn into a treatise on Mayan burial customs or Sumerian gods. Not that it had ever happened to her.

“Beverly?” Judith said solicitously. “Is something wrong?”

She must have looked lost, standing there trying to figure out why John would be so secretive. She shook her head. “No. No, nothing’s wrong.” She checked her watch, held up her wrist to wriggle it at Judith. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

 

~*~NOW~*~

In next to no time, Sam had the computer connected and was surfing for any other information on the case. Dean poked around the room, idly repositioning a small piece of statuary on her shelf. “She has books everywhere,” he commented.

“She’s a librarian, Dean,” Sam pointed out.

“Yeah, but…how many versions of _The Epic of Gilgamesh_ does one person need?”

Sam stared at him. “Jess had about fifteen different versions of Arthurian myths. For her senior thesis.”

Dean grimaced, as if guilty to have reminded Sam of anything he associated with Jess. Cowed, he clicked on the TV, more to cover any conversation they might have than to actually pay attention. It didn’t stop him flipping through the channels.

“Man, I don’t feel right, ordering pay-per-view on her TV,” he grumbled.

Sam chortled. “You do have a conscience, then,” he observed.

“Oh, shut up.”

“She’s cool, though,” Sam commented cautiously. “I guess as kids, we didn’t really get to see that.”

“No,” Dean allowed. “She was just the librarian. And the chick Dad was banging.”

Sam grunted. He tapped at the keyboard, trying a password to get into the Ohio Registry for information about Barker’s car. He’d managed to download a file, but it was encrypted. “I don’t even remember her and Dad—as a couple, I mean,” he said.

Dean waved his head back and forth, eyes closed, his version of a shrug combined with remembering. “Yeah, you were pretty little. And they didn’t…parade it, or anything,” he mused. “Actually, they were pretty careful. There were a couple tipoffs, though.”

“Such as?” Sam pushed. He wanted to know, while Dean was in a talkative mood. He had always been this way: Sam had to coax information out of Dean, wait for him to feel like giving up his memories or reactions, catch him at the right time or in the right frame of mind to share, instead of shut down. It was an old dance, one he was used to doing with Dean, leading by letting Dean lead.

Dean leaned back on the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table. “Well, Dad would go out, after we were in bed. I know ‘cause he’d come back really late, and I’d wake up, but he’d just…duck his head in, really quiet, y’know? Tryin’ to check on us without waking us. I kinda figured…he didn’t want us to know.”

“How’d you know it was Mrs. Kirkland, though?” Sam wondered. “Or…when, I guess. When did you put it together?”

Dean thought about it, shrugged. “Probably…about Halloween? You prob’ly don’t remember, but he went on this job. Dad usually dug up a hunt around that time of year—I guess to get his mind off Mom. Used to be he’d drop us with Bobby or Pastor Jim, so he could spend the days around the anniversary of the fire alone. I’m pretty sure he got drunk a couple of those times.” He sighed. “Anyway, he’d been going on shorter trips at that point, not even really overnight, but this was gonna be a few days. And he told me…he told me to call Pastor Jim if he wasn’t back at the end of the week. But then he said…” he cleared his throat, “he said that if you wanted to, I could take you to the library. And he told me that if we went, we should wait around and then tell Mrs. Kirkland that he’d probably been held up at work and to ask for a ride home.”

“Whoa. Dead giveaway—that’s not like Dad.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean agreed. He lolled his head left and right along the back of the couch. “Like I never knew about Tina, either.”

“Who?” Sam squinted at him.

Dean blew out his cheeks with a sigh. “Yeah, you were about two, there’s no way you’d remember. First time I remember Dad getting any. We were in Modesto and she had the room next to ours. Took me a while to figure out that the noises from her room weren’t from the TV. She and Dad got kinda…friendly.” Dean waggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Are you…seriously saying Dad _paid_ for sex?”

Dean shrugged. “Sam, I was six. How would I know? But I know he went next door more than once and I know it wasn’t just to borrow sugar.”

“Fuck,” Sam said, drawing the word out to three syllables.

“Exactly. Anyway, Dad didn’t want me to know, because when I asked he just said he was being a good neighbor and they were having some ‘grownup fun.’ But it was obvious something was up. Same with Mrs. Kirkland. Dad wasn’t really as clever as he thought. I mean, there was Christmas. And all of January.” 

“So…can I ask you something?” Sam asked.

Dean slid his eyes sideways. “If you have to ask that, probably not.”

Sam smiled; Dean’s tone was gruff, but the corners of his mouth had twitched. “Okay. But, you knew Dad hooked up occasionally.”

“Sure. He was male, Sam. Hell, even you hook up occasionally.”

“Ha-ha. My point is, if you knew he and Mrs. Kirkland had a thing…why does it matter now? Why so negative about seeing her?”

Dean turned up the volume. He swallowed. Sam waited. “Like I said, I didn’t think she’d want to see us. I mean, we probably don’t represent very good memories.” He fell silent. 

Sam concentrated on his computer screen, but stole glances at Dean for a clue as to what he was thinking. It could have been anything from a simple pause to digest his dinner to regret that he didn’t have a Mrs. Kirkland in his life. Embarrassed, he stared at the downloaded file on his screen again, and the decryption hit him like a sudden jolt. He typed in the decryption code and the program bloomed into activity. He made a wordless sound of triumph. 

Dean glanced over and Sam pointed at the screen to indicate his success. “Not long, now.”

After a minute, Dean launched himself off the couch swiftly. “Well, I’m getting another beer. You want one?”

Sam stared. Dean being solicitous was a clear sign of the apocalypse, or something. “Sure,” he said, trying not to sound suspicious, choosing not to comment on Dean’s unusual generosity.

His computer beeped; the file had decrypted. He launched and browsed through it, looking for anything notable that could help pin down this case. The demon had to have a reason for abandoning its hosts after only five days, but Sam couldn’t figure out what. It nagged at him, as did the travel and the senseless crimes. It was like they were luring him and Dean onto their trail. Unbidden, the voice of the demonic Pride ran through his head, calling him “Boy King” and crowing that many of the demons now on earth had no intention of following him. In fact, they had opposite plans. What if this case were an elaborate trap, a ruse to draw them into the area? There was no telling what they had planned if they caught him—whoever “they” were.

Dean came back, beer in tow, and settled on the couch again. “Getting anywhere?”

Sam hummed negatively. He pulled up the Google map and stared at 271 as if it would give him a clue. Then he toggled to the open tab with Case Western’s site again. “Well, I figured out what dorm Lauren Kennedy lived in, researched it for strange occurrences, deaths, etc.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And there was a suicide there, five years ago.” He paused for Dean’s reaction.

“Okay, so?”

“I dunno,” Sam admitted wearily, giving up the pretense that the suicide record was significant by itself. “But the bar where David Owen disappeared and Lauren showed up? Lowell’s Tavern? There was an incident with two patrons. Playing Russian Roulette.”

“Oh, man,” Dean said, somewhere between disgust and admiration at the sheer stupidity of human beings. “And let me guess, one of them got blown away? Ew, very _Deer Hunter_ , man—that’s sick.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, “and the other one felt so guilty, he ate his gun about two weeks later.”

“Weird. What the heck do suicides have to do with demonic possession?”

Sam’s eyebrows twitched. “Well, a lot of religions believe that suicides automatically go to Hell. Catholicism in particular.” He ignored the look Dean gave him whenever he was forced into lecture mode. “Maybe this demon has an affinity for suicides, so it gravitated to places where a suicide was committed?”

Dean grunted. “Hm. Maybe.” He flicked the channel button on the remote. “Dude, there’s nothing on.”

“Go back to the Food Network,” Sam muttered.

Dean grinned like a gremlin that had just found an unobstructed airline engine. “Why, Sammy. You got a secret man-crush on Bobby Flay?”

Sam shook his head at his brother. “I don’t even know who that is, and yet _I’m_ the gay one?” he commented. “Food network is…benign.”

“So’s HGTV, but you actually get power tools once in a while.”

“Yeah, in between techniques like crackle and upholstering, and talk about color and window treatments. Seriously? You’re honestly saying home decorating is less girly than food? Jerk.”

Dean smirked. “Whatever, bitch.” But he found the Food Network, just as _Iron Chef America_ was coming on. They bet each other over which chef would win after Alton Brown announced “tomatoes” as the secret ingredient.

 

~*~THEN~*~

The change of season caught Beverly off guard. One day it was still summer, it seemed, with mild days and sunshine, and overnight, there was frost on the grass and the leaves had dropped from the trees, and the students at the library lugged heavy coats in addition to their backpacks.

She saw John once or perhaps twice a week, with no regularity, but he called in between visits without asking to come over. He barely came in to the library; she wasn’t sure whether that was reluctance to see her or worry that he’d make their relationship plain to everyone—including Dean and Sam. By phone, he’d talked tentatively about how important the boys were to him, how fragile he thought their family was in the wake of Mary’s death. “I just—keeping us together, keeping them where I can watch over them—that’s all I can think of,” he admitted. But if Beverly wondered why he felt so protective of his children, he changed the subject subtly.

He did indicate, by action if not in so many words, that Dean in particular was incredibly sensitive to—and belligerent toward—any woman who dared fill the role of a mother toward him. “I can’t quite explain to him,” John said one night in her room. “He’s not old enough yet to understand that there’s a difference between love and—” He broke off, stroked her arm contritely. “Sorry—that was pretty crass,” he apologized.

“Not at all, John,” Beverly told him, pinching his side. “Lucky for you, you’re just a piece of tail to me, too.”

“That’s not what I—”

“I know what you meant, John,” Beverly said wearily. “Don’t try to fix it; you’ll only bury yourself deeper.” She sat up, patting his chest maternally. “Besides, I thought we were both clear on the limits, here. You’re a damn attractive man, John, but as I’ve told you before, you’re no Tom.”

John nodded and reached up to stroke her neck. He cupped his hand around the back of her head. “Does that mean you’re kicking me out, or…are you up for another round?”

She smiled coquettishly, bending under the slight pressure of his hand. He pulled her toward him. She pressed her lips against his mouth, and as their kiss deepened, she wrapped her leg over his hip, leaning her hands on his chest. No, he wasn’t Tom, but damn, he was a lot of fun.

The next day Sam and Dean arrived at the library, both in high dudgeon. It was unusual for both of them to be out of sorts at the same time, so Beverly paid particular attention to them during the two hours it usually took for John to get them. Dean made no move to wait at the door with Sam, but let his brother keep reading long after the other kids filtered out. Beverly could only describe Dean’s behavior as sulking. Sam, for all that he had quickly buried himself in his book, seemed depressed as well. She checked the time: five-thirty, and no sign of John. Finally, Sam looked up at his brother.

“Dean, m’hungry.”

Dean scowled. “You’re always hungry, runt.”

“M’ _really_ hungry, though,” Sam insisted. But he didn’t ask Dean about where their father was, or why he was late. He looked at Dean and then as if prompting the older boy, he inclined his head and pointed his eyes in her direction. Dean’s jaw jutted out, as if being asked to do something distasteful. He pushed out from the table and approached her with caution bordering on prejudice.

“Mrs.—Mrs. Kirkland?”

“Yes, Dean?”

He looked back at Sam, as if for moral support. Beverly’s heart suddenly beat very fast. Could it be that after all this time, she’d been dead wrong about John? He really was an alcoholic, he really did beat the boys bloody—and she’d done nothing. 

But Dean swallowed and dispelled her irrational fear with his next sentence. “Our dad said…he said he might get held up at work tonight. And that if he was, we should ask if you could give us a ride home.”

Beverly felt an unimaginable relief wash over her. Followed by guilt. Considering the late night phone calls and their somewhat frequent hookups, her sudden jump back to “child abuse” was unjustified. Still, it made her realize that after nearly two months, the nagging sense that something was wrong with the Winchesters had never entirely dissipated. She’d thought it had just been Mary’s death, but there was more than that. She felt like she barely knew John. They’d talked about their childhoods—and in John’s case, a bit about how that related to raising his sons—and school, and sometimes John talked about his experiences as a soldier (mostly the more amusing or benign anecdotes), and on even rarer occasions, he’d talked about Mary. Guardedly, as if to speak too much of her would break the fragile memories into shards. She tried to draw him out about his research, his writing, but he waved that off as a harmless pastime—a quaint obsession with which he said he didn’t wish to bore her.

“I’m a librarian,” she’d tell him when he did that. “Research is my drug of choice.” But he’d only shake his head, smile that damn irresistible smile of his, and change the subject.

Dean was smiling his father’s smile now—the hopeful, charming one that asked for a specific favor without offering any explanation. 

“Well,” she said, looking around the library. Maria was working Circulation and Judith held down the fort in both Reference and their small media section. It was a slow night. There were no young kids left in Children’s except Dean and Sam. “Yes, I’m sure I could do that. Can you wait just a few more minutes while I tell the others?”

Dean nodded seriously. “Sure.” He sat down with Sam again.

Judith was going to have a field day with this, but it couldn’t be helped. As expected, she grew disproportionately excited when Beverly explained she was closing her section early.

“They say the way to a man’s heart is through his children,” Judith declared.

Beverly sighed. “For the last time, Judes, he’s—”

“Married?” Judith scoffed. “Then where’s the wife to pick them up when he’s late, hm?” Judith held up her hands. “Okay, Beverly, I’m not interfering—you know best, of course. But if he trusts you with his children, how do you know he has no feelings for you?”

“Because I know, Judes,” Beverly said too quickly to stop herself. “Because we’ve talked about it, okay?” She clamped down on her anger—it wasn’t Judith’s fault. She’d set the rules of their relationship as firmly as he had. In her more logical moments, she knew that she was right. He’d never give himself completely—and neither would she—and moreover, he would always put his boys before himself. Between Mary’s ghost and Tom’s shadow, she would be lucky to earn even fifty percent of his attention. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she continued, “Look. We’ve become a little acquainted, but I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. Right now, I’m going to make sure those two kids get home safe. And that’s all.”

Judith must have been shocked into silence, because she just nodded dumbly and finally stammered, “O-okay, Beverly. See you tomorrow.”

Beverly pivoted and went back to her section, where the boys were waiting too patiently. “What?” she asked, suspicion on high alert.

“Is it okay?” Sam asked. “For you to take us home?”

“Of course it is,” she said, smiling. The boys relaxed visibly and grabbed their stuff. She unlocked her desk drawer and took out her purse. “Will your dad be home in time to make you dinner or should we stop and get something for you on the way?”

“Oh, we’ll—” Dean started to say, but Sam interrupted him.

“C’n we stop at Wendy’s?” 

Beverly should have known that if presented with waiting for a cooked meal or fast food, they would want the fast food. “Uh…sure. I suppose,” she agreed. “Come on, I’m in the back.” 

“Cool, I’ve never seen the guts of a library before,” Sam said. He was happy to chatter all the way to the back where her coat was and even as far as the car.

“Wow. Is that your car?” Dean asked when he saw the Ford LTD in the lot.

“That’s right, you like old cars, don’t you?” she commented.

“Yeah. Too bad it’s a Ford,” he declared. Beverly bit back a snort of amusement.

She got them settled in the car, Sammy in the back and Dean in the bucket seat next to her, and they hit the drive-through at the Wendy’s. Faced with making conversation that wasn’t about reading, Beverly cast about for a topic. “So, what are you two going to be for Halloween?” she asked.

Given how loquacious Sam had been earlier, she fully expected the question would prompt a storm of possibilities. She was surprised and disappointed when Sam didn’t have much to say about it. “We haven’t figured it out yet,” Dean said. “I mean, Sam can usually rake in the candy, but…neither of us has enough allowance for a real costume. Not like Neil Phillips—he’s got a Spiderman costume with the hood and everything.”

“Some of the best costumes are homemade,” Beverly assured him. “It’s creativity that counts, right? I bet you’ll come up with something. What does your dad think?”

Dean scrunched up his lips and twitched them side-to-side. “Dad…doesn’t really like Halloween.”

“Oh, really, why’s that?” she asked lightly.

“He thinks it’s dumb,” Sam said from the back seat.

“Huh,” Beverly said, careful to modulate her reaction. John never struck her as the type of guy who would see any harm in Trick-or-Treating. He certainly had no religious objections, she knew that. But she also knew they’d moved a few times, so maybe that had included a few places where the neighborhoods had scares, like the old wives’ tale about razor blades in the candied apples. 

She pulled up to the window and repeated their requests into the microphone. Two kids’ meals and two Frosties later, they drove away and Dean gave her directions to Mrs. Ryan’s four-unit apartment house. Lights were on in every apartment but the second-floor unit on the left. The Impala was nowhere in sight.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right until your dad gets home?” Beverly asked.

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Dean assured her brusquely. “Thanks for the ride, and for dinner.”

“Thanks,” Sam echoed. 

Dean opened his door and got out, then lifted the release to pull the seat forward for Sam. Sam slid over, handed his backpack and his Frosty to Dean, and scrambled out of the car. Beverly waited while Dean handed off backpack, Frosty, and paper sack to Sam, fished for his key in his jacket pocket, and unlocked the front door. He waved to signal her it was okay to leave.

Beverly drove past Garry’s on the way home, but the Impala wasn’t there, either.

 

~*~NOW~*~

Sam woke up earlier than Dean, but by the time he’d showered and made it downstairs, Beverly had left. There was a note in the kitchen, reminding them to help themselves to anything. The house key sat on the counter next to it.

Sam opened her fridge idly. At the sight of eggs, bacon, and OJ, Sam decided it had been way too long since they’d had breakfast outside a diner. He set to work.

He was scrambling the eggs in the bacon grease when Dean came downstairs. “It’s not my birthday,” Dean mused. “What’s the occasion?”

“Just felt like making a real meal,” Sam told him. “Especially if we’re heading up to Cleveland.”

Dean duckbilled his lips to agree to the plan and busied himself making toast.

“She’s got like three different kinds of jam in the fridge,” Sam told him. “Looks like they’re all Amish.”

“Dude. Score.”

Over breakfast, Sam pulled up the Case Western site again. He used the interactive map to zero in on the North Residential Village. “Okay, so Lauren lived in Cutler House, which is on the north end of the campus.”

“Right.”

“And David Owen was picked up in Shaker Heights, which is about five miles away from Lauren’s dorm.”

“Five again,” Dean said. “What’s with this demon and the number five?”

“I dunno, man, but if it really is on a five-day pattern, then Gareth Barker should get caught tomorrow.”

“Okay. Well, shouldn’t be hard to canvass both areas this afternoon. Let’s head up there.”

Sam grabbed the key and slipped it into his pocket. He turned over the note and wrote back to Beverly that they might not get back tonight; if Barker really didn’t show up again until the next day, it wouldn’t make sense to come back right away. The drive took Dean less than two hours. They wandered across the campus to Cutler House, where they charmed a coed into letting them past the security doors.

“Did Lauren live in suicide girl’s dorm room?” Dean asked.

“Uh…no. _She_ is in room 302; the girl who killed herself lived in room 419.”

Dean led them to the 4th floor first. They picked the lock on the suite and let themselves in. Dean swept for EMF, but wasn’t surprised when they didn’t find any. “It would be the middle of the day,” he grumbled. “There’s nothin’ here, Sam.”

They snuck back out of the suite and took the stairs down one flight to find Lauren’s room. Unlike their first target, however, music inside proclaimed that someone was home. Sam knocked.

“Do you…live here?” asked the coed who answered the door. She looked like she could stand to lose about forty pounds, but had a pleasant face and pretty eyes, behind her dark-rimmed glasses.

“Ms. Saunders? Liz Saunders?” Dean said, slipping immediately into his “voice of authority,” the mild version. Sam often thought Dean would have made a great cop, for real. He did a bang-up job impersonating one, most of the time.

“Yes,” she said cautiously.

Dean smiled in a restrained way. “I’m Detective Haskell, this is Detective Mondello. We’d like to ask you a few questions about your roommate, if we could.” As he spieled out the line, he reached into his pocket and flashed his badge casually.

“Lauren?” her roommate said, paling. “I’ve already talked to two detectives from Columbus…uh, I have their cards—”

“We understand,” Sam said earnestly. “We’re just following up on a few things for the department. Could we come in?”

“Uh…” she looked uncomfortable, but more concerned than anything else. “Well, I have a class in about twenty minutes, but—”

“This shouldn’t take long,” Dean assured her, sounding very official. He pushed his way past her and into the suite. Sam followed with a reassuring smile as he passed her. They both cased the room out of habit. 

After a couple basic questions, Sam asked to see their room and Liz complied. She leaned on the doorjamb at first, but Dean distracted her with the questions so Sam got a chance to scope Lauren’s room for sulfur. The whole place was clean. Sam read the titles on her bookshelves: Anthropology, Comparative Religion, and Ancient Cultures textbooks stood next to copies of several different translations of Mesopotamian texts. He pulled out one book idly; the cover was decorated with Cuneiform symbols in the form of pentagons, triangles, and squiggly lines. When he came out, Liz was answering Dean’s inquiry.

“Yeah, she was acting a little weird, talking about getting out of town when we’d just started the summer session, y’know?”

Dean nodded, but he was looking past her at Sam. Sam shook his head slightly. “Did she tell you before she left that she was going away?”

Liz shook her head. “Not a word. I just can’t understand why she’d go to Columbus in the first place, let alone that bar.”

“Did you have any idea she could take out four truckers like that?”

She narrowed her eyes, assessing whether Dean was being sarcastic or not. Sam sympathized: as well as he knew Dean, it was sometimes hard to tell if his occasional buffoon act was genuine or calculated. “No,” she said slowly. “She was…. I don’t think she’d ever hit anyone before in her life.”

Dean raised his eyebrows at Sam imperceptibly, as if taking pride that he’d uncovered a clue. Sam did his best to acknowledge without making Dean think he’d solved the whole darn case. 

“One last question, Ms. Saunders,” Sam said, joining them in the common area. He pulled out the pictures of David Owen and Gareth Barker. “Have you seen either of these men before?”

“Uh…not him,” she said, pointing to Barker. “But…isn’t that the arsonist they caught last week down in Shaker Heights?”

“Have you seen him anywhere else?” Sam pressed.

“No,” she said regretfully. 

“That’s okay,” Sam told her. He tore a page out of his little police-issue notebook. “If you happen to see this other guy, maybe around campus, in the next day or two, give us a call, please.”

“Okay.” She stood up and grabbed her backpack. “Look, I really need to go if I’m going to make it to class.”

“That’s all right,” Dean said, rising. “We’re done here. Thank you for your time.”

It wasn’t hard to find the site of the fire on Fernway Road. The house was a charred pile of clapboards, twisted aluminum siding, and ashes. Though the fire had blazed four days ago, Sam could swear he could smell the smoke in the air around the lot. There was nothing to see at the site, but canvassing the neighborhood revealed that David Owen had been seen that afternoon at a playground in Horseshoe Lake Park, then later at the country club, and finally at a bar off of Chagrin Blvd., before he set the fire a little after midnight.

“This is weird, man, even for us,” Sam muttered on their way back to the car after interviewing everyone on the block. Everyone who was home, anyway—it was still a little early for the commuters to be back from work.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Dean said. “Okay, I say we go to the bar this guy mentioned…what was it, the Ashmont Arms?”

“Ashtabula Arms,” Sam corrected. He knew Dean had a head for case details, but somehow when he had Sam along, he never bothered to listen closely.

“Okay, let’s go there, grab some grub, keep an eye out. If the two victims showed up at the same bar in Columbus, maybe Barker will come to the same place Owen did.”

“Good idea.” Even though he suspected Dean just wanted to fuel up and kick back, it was as good a place to stake out as any.

 

~*~THEN~*~

Beverly expected to see the boys back at the library the next day, after she’d taken them for supper and then dropped them at home. But they didn’t come in after school that day or the next—but that was Halloween, so the library barely had traffic that day, what with kids out trick-or-treating. John didn’t call, either. 

When they did come in, almost at the end of the week, she asked Dean how late their dad had gotten home that night. “I only ask because my route home from your apartment took me past the garage where he works.”

Dean eyed her suspiciously. “How do you know he works at a garage?”

“Oh, I take my car there, so I’ve seen him,” she said quickly. 

“Oh. Well, he wasn’t too long.”

“Must not have been. His car wasn’t in the lot when I drove by. We must have just missed each other. It’s funny I didn’t notice the car going in the other direction.”

“Maybe he took another route,” Dean said. For a ten-year-old, he sounded very cagey.

Beverly considered letting it go. After all, she didn’t object to John leaving the boys alone while they were sleeping. But for some reason, this felt different. “Dean…if there’s something going on at home, you know, with your dad? You know you can tell a teacher, or even me.”

Dean slid his eyes left and right. “Nothing’s going on. My dad takes care of us just fine,” he said. It was defensive, but Beverly hadn’t expected anything less.

“I’m sure he does his best,” Beverly said painfully. She hated doing this, not just because it was always hard to come between kids and parents. She couldn’t believe John would do anything to endanger his kids, but she knew that being a single parent often presented him with tough choices. Still, even though it wasn’t easy, there were right and wrong ways to proceed. 

She didn’t wish to alienate Dean, however, and she could tell that pushing the issue would undo the trust she’d built up so far. She could take it up with John when they spoke next.

It was getting dark when he came for them. Dean sprang into action as soon as John appeared in the entryway. “C’mon, Sam, let’s go. Dad’ll be tired.” He shot Beverly a rebellious look as he settled his bag on his shoulder. He and Sam hustled toward their father, closing the gap so that it would be awkward for John to come to her. But John seemed happy enough to wait for them. He nodded a hello to her, let the boys cross in front of him, and turned on his heel to escort them back out. It seemed to Beverly that he was limping a little.

She wasn’t surprised when her phone rang later that evening, just as she was turning out the downstairs lights. 

“Dean tells me you’re checking up on me,” he said without a greeting.

“I’ve been worried about you,” Beverly explained honestly.

“Bullshit. You’re suspicious. I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have asked Dean to come to you.”

“No, you should,” Beverly told him. “I know it’s not easy, and you said that you’re low man on the totem pole at work. It’s okay to ask for help, John.”

She heard him sigh. “I…usually I can arrange someone to look after them, but the sitter fell through,” he offered. “You didn’t have to get them supper.”

“They were hungry,” Beverly answered. “Did you hurt yourself? You were limping this afternoon.”

“I’m fine,” John said, both reassuringly and in a way that made it clear he wasn’t going to talk about what happened. “I’m sorry I haven’t…been in touch.”

“That’s all right. Sounds like you had a lot going on.” She closed her eyes. When would she stop thinking the worst of him? Of course, he knew how to engage a babysitter. “John, hang on a second, will you? Let me switch to the upstairs phone.”

“Upstairs? Does that mean you’re taking me to bed with you?” John purred.

“You’ll have to wait and find out,” she flirted back. She went upstairs and took the cordless phone off its cradle. “I’m back,” she said, and padded back down the stairs to hang up the other phone. 

“And I’m waiting. What’s next?” He was teasing her.

But she and Tom had lived apart for two years, and long-distance telephone games were no stranger to her. She took the phone to the bathroom. “Now…I’ve had a hard day, and I think I’ll run a bath,” she told him, making it a clear shot across the bow.

John laughed, low and sexy. “Don’t let me stop you,” he said. 

“I don’t intend to,” she replied. “So, has work been running you ragged?” she asked, mostly to keep conversation going.

“Work, yes,” John said softly. “It’s been a rough week. And it didn’t get any easier with you giving Dean the third degree,” he pointed out sourly.

“I know…I’m sorry,” Beverly said. She meant it, but she did find it curious how he’d put her on the defensive so quickly.

“He was pretty upset by the questions. He’s convinced you were trying to find an excuse to turn me in to Social Services.”

“Really?” Beverly said, feeling her temper rise. “Is that because he’s got an active imagination, or is that because it’s happened before? We never have talked about why you move around so much, John. Why is that?”

John’s voice hardened. “Where is this coming from?”

“It’s coming from…dammit, John, you and your brick walls!” Beverly gritted her teeth. She was breaking her own terms, and she knew it, but suddenly the dribs and drabs of information he was willing to share seemed too little. “Every time I think I know what’s going on with you, something convinces me I have it all wrong. Maybe it’s just my training—we’re taught to watch for signs that a family is in distress. I can’t ignore it when something doesn’t add up.”

“You could try trusting me, Beverly. I know what I’m doing,” John said angrily.

“Given Dean’s insecurities, I’m not so sure,” she shot back.

John said nothing for so long that Beverly thought he’d hung up. 

“John?”

“Yeah,” he said through a frog in his throat.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“No?” he asked sarcastically. But the irony sounded directed at himself. “I’m not saying I’m the best father in the world, but dammit, I’m doing this the only way I fucking can, Beverly. Believe me.”

“I want to, and I don’t want to interfere—”

“Then don’t,” John quipped.

She sighed. “It’s just….” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “It would be easier to trust you if I knew more about you. About what you’re doing when you’re not working at Garry’s, for example.”

John modulated his voice, too, but it was still somewhat cold. “I told you, it’s just a research project. It’s no big deal.”

“Okay. But if it’s no big deal, why not tell me more about it?” Beverly pressed. Her stomach and chest felt tight. She hadn’t realized until they began arguing how much their relationship had come to mean to her. She saw the whole rest of the conversation play out before her: John would dig in; she would try to reason with him; John would get defensive and block her efforts to break through; he would tell her to mind her own business and slam down the phone. She told herself she’d have to navigate the conversation carefully if she didn’t want that conclusion to come true.

But to her surprise, John told her that he’d been researching the Johnson House and found a connection to a Mennonite community west of town, out route 161. He talked for a few minutes about Mennonite and Amish building techniques, specifically their superstitions about hex marks. “Actually, I’m thinking I might get some time off to go to a lecture in Springfield, in a couple weeks.”

“Alone?” she asked.

“I haven’t decided yet. I probably can’t get a sitter, not if I’m gone overnight. But Dean’s made a couple friends at school; maybe I can arrange a sleepover or something. Don’t know if that would work for Sammy,” he continued, almost to himself. “Or I might be able to take the boys with me.”

“Won’t they get underfoot?” Beverly wondered aloud.

“They’re used to staying out of the way. I’m sure you’ve noticed,” John said. His humor was restored in the ironic way he pointed out his sons’ behavior. She let him tell her their latest exploits—mainly involving an incident in which Dean had decided to fill Sam’s sneaker with shaving cream, and Sam retaliated with the clever replacement of pickle juice for Dean’s mouthwash—while she ran her bath. By the time she sank into it, offering John a bit of play-by-play, she was once again reassured that all was as well as could be expected with the Winchester household.

 

~*~NOW~*~

The Ashtabula Arms had fairly good food, considering how much of a dive it was. Dean occupied himself with a few games of pool, not running a hustle on purpose, but winning anyway. They waited around, interviewing people when the opportunity arose, but learned nothing of significance before closing time. Barker was a no-show.

Sam wished they’d found a room before hitting the bar, but Dean drove toward the interstate and they pulled in to the first lot with a vacancy sign they saw (not an easy thing at 2:30 AM). Dean also reluctantly parted with some of his new-earned cash so there wouldn’t be a credit trail. Feeling like this case was getting away from him, but not even sure why, Sam collapsed into one of the beds and was asleep before Dean turned out the light.

Sunlight streamed into the room several hours later. It burned through Sam’s eyelids. They had neglected to close the curtains. He rolled onto his stomach in protest. In the next bed, he heard Dean groan and snuffle deeper into his pillow, as well. Sleep returned within a minute. The sharp knock of the housekeeper woke them both up next. Sam came awake more quickly this time. He snapped to consciousness the way he had done since Stanford, whenever he was awakened by noise or touch other than a recognizable (Dean’s, Jess’s, even Dad’s) voice or tap on foot or shoulder. Sometime last year, after he started hunting again, he realized that Dad had done that, too—no groan of protest or bleary glances around to orient himself—just _boom_ , awake. Dean, on the other hand, was trying the groaning protestation route.

Sam pulled himself out of the bed and lurched to the door. He unlatched it and shook his head bashfully at the little plump woman with her towel cart. “We forgot the sign, sorry,” he said, and reached around to hang it out on the knob.

“Sorry! Sorry!” she said over and over, in a thick accent (Latvian? Sam wondered), laughing a little to cover her embarrassment at disturbing Sam, or maybe it was the sight of his t-shirt and boxer briefs. 

“Wazzat room service?” Dean groused as Sam shut and locked the door.

“No. Hey, did you lay out salt?” He only just realized that he hadn’t stepped through any at the doorway.

“Mph,” Dean said, which could have been a yes or a no. But a second later, he breathed, “Thought you said you had it.”

“Yeah, I brought it in, but….” Sam waved away the rest of his statement. _Lucky nothing showed up_ , he thought. He went to the duffel and poured out lines before falling back onto his bed. Sleep wasn’t going to come back now, but he didn’t want to be awake, either, so he relaxed, stretched out almost diagonally, and closed his eyes to figure out what had been bugging him about the case since before last night.

 _Okay,_ he thought, _start with the timeline. David Owen goes missing (Day Zero), turns up five days later, about 150 miles away. Two days after that (Day Seven), Lauren takes off from school and reverses the trip, gets arrested on Day Twelve. Then sometime on Day Fourteen, Barker (we think) disappears. So that means_ , he tapped his fingers on his chest to count, _today is day five for Barker, Day Nineteen overall. What the heck is it with five? And why the pattern? It’s like one per week or something._

_Then there’s the travel between Columbus and Cleveland. Seriously, that’s jacked. What’s he doing with the extra time? Why aren’t there any omens—_

He opened his eyes. That’s what had bugged him. No omens. There were no demonic predecessors at all—no electrical storms, no cattle deaths—nothing to indicate demonic activity. Whereas the once-per-week pattern felt much more like a ritual…something a human (or humans) would devise.

“Shit, Dean,” he said aloud.

“What?” In contrast to his incoherence before, Dean’s voice across the table from Sam’s head sounded alert, concerned even. Sam could tell that Dean’s immediate thought was for Sam’s distress. Which, given the month he’d had, rabbit’s foot and all, was a little comforting, despite how annoying his brother could be when it came to worrying about his own predicament.

“Sam, what?” Dean demanded sharply. He pulled back the covers and swung his legs out of bed. Sam mirrored him.

“I don’t think this _is_ a demon at all,” Sam explained. “What’s been missing from every disappearance and every criminal incident so far?”

Dean thought about it, his eyes casting around the room’s crown molding for the answer. “Waldo?” he quipped, deadpan. Then it hit him, too. He snapped his fingers and segued to wag one finger at his brother. “Omens,” he concluded smarmily.

“Right,” Sam said happily. He ignored Dean’s self-congratulatory, smug nod. “Not a single precursory event. And the timing—every week, like clockwork. Dean, this feels more like ritual stuff.”

“Wait—what about the sulfur in Barker’s apartment?” Dean pointed out.

Sam lurched over to the table. “I dunno, maybe….” He pushed through the files. “Dean. Barker’s a chemist. He probably had sulfur residue from his lab.”

Dean grimaced. “Oh, man,” he whined, “does that mean we’re dealing with humans?”

Sam nodded and grunted his sympathy. Dean hated the hunts involving human culprits, and Sam couldn’t blame him. They were tougher, less predictable, and less straightforward. Dean’s own morality was pretty fluid about a lot of things, but his sense of cosmic Right and Wrong came straight out of the old westerns, war movies, and comics he loved so much. Human ambiguity, human complication, made their job a lot trickier to do. It also usually meant less guns blazing, and a more open-ended distribution of judgment, which made Dean feel like the hunts were unresolved. In short, it meant he couldn’t kill things.

“So, what do we do now?” Dean complained. “We still think Barker’s gonna show up in Cleveland, right? Today?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam reasoned. “Just because it’s not a demon doesn’t mean there’s nothing to fix.”

Dean scrubbed his brushcut. “Okay. Well, let’s clean ourselves up, get breakfast, see what else we can find out.”

“Good—we should hit someplace with Wi-Fi so I can check the police reports, recent rap sheets and so on.”

“What’s wrong with a newspaper?” Dean asked gruffly. Sam laughed. The comment had been delivered in Dean’s imitation of Dad’s voice, evoking an old conversation and a debate that had lasted, as far as Sam knew, the rest of their father’s life.

“God, remember when I tried to get him to open an Amazon account?”

“Too easy to track,” Dean replied, still in Dad’s authoritative bark. “Though I kind of agree with him there.”

“Nah, you’d be amazed at the false trail you can lay online.” Sam smiled at his brother. It seemed like it had been ages since they were so at ease together. Joking—about Dad’s autocratic and often antiquated methods, no less—felt a little like the “normal” that so constantly eluded Sam.

“Yeah, well, the point is I’ll scan the papers while you check last night’s booking logs.”

“Deal.”

They made themselves presentable in short order and Dean, like a pointer on the scent of a mallard, found an IHOP right next to a coffee house with Wi-Fi. Sam started working on breaking into the Cleveland PD’s system, his pancakes still settling heavily in his stomach. Dean got himself another cup of coffee, even though he’d had three fill-ups with his western omelette, and flopped down in an easy chair with that morning’s issues of the _Cleveland Plain Dealer_ , the _Akron Beacon Journal_ , the _Columbus Dispatch_ , and just to be thorough, the _Erie Times News_.

For some reason, Sam was having trouble accessing the police records. He tried switching to the public areas of the site, just to check whether there were any APB’s or alerts out on anyone matching Barker’s description. “I got nothin’,” he admitted after half an hour.

“Okay well, he’s only due to show himself today, right?” Dean said mildly. “Let’s not give—Son of a bitch!” He sat up, staring at the paper.

“J-Lo still not rescinding that restraining order?” Sam teased. 

“No, she’s in the bag, Sammy, already told you,” Dean riposted without missing a beat. He turned the newspaper article so Sam could see it. He pointed to the bottom of the page.

Dean had been reading the Crime Beat section. There was no picture, and the item was on the inner column. It took up at most three column inches. But the tiny headline read, _Missing Man from Columbus Kills Two in Toledo._ Sam sat up and read further.

_Gareth Barker, 27, of Steelton, Ohio, was shot while resisting officers outside a 24-hour Krispy Kreme Donuts in East Toledo. Moments before police arrived on the scene, Barker had allegedly robbed the shop and shot its two employees. Said Officer Daniel Clayburn, “It was a clear case of death-by-cop. He just charged at us when we told him to drop his weapon.” Barker had been reported missing four days ago by his sister, Lucy Barker. Ms. Barker declined to comment._

“Whoa,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “I thought this thing was leaving people to take the fall for its crimes.”

“Well, I guess he couldn’t live with what had happened.”

“Or maybe it’s changing its MO.”

“Maybe. But—Toledo?” Sam crinkled his nose.

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t see that coming.”

Dean gestured at their surroundings. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Yeah, but all this time, the demon’s been going back and forth between Columbus and Cleveland. Why the heck would the demon take someone to Toledo all of a sudden?”

“I dunno. Cedar Point?”

Sam didn’t just roll his eyes at Dean; he rolled his whole head. Dean had been hinting about the roller coasters since Sam had suggested coming to Ohio, but he knew as well as Sam that they had better things to do than goof off at the theme park. Aside from the fact that it was nowhere near on the way from Columbus to Toledo, Sam was determined not to let Dean wind him up over the case again. Rather than make an issue of the ridiculous suggestion, he observed, “You know, we could probably get to Toledo in about two hours.” He flipped down the laptop screen and unplugged the charger.

“Try 90 minutes,” Dean boasted, already heading for the door.


	4. Part Four

~*~THEN~*~

John must have felt especially guilty about their argument, because when he came over the next night, he made it up to her in no uncertain terms. Then he asked when her next day off from the library was.

“Why are you asking?” she said, only half-suspicious.

“It’s about time for me to change the oil in the Impala. Thought I’d work on yours at the same time.”

“Joint oil change? Why John, how romantic,” she teased.

“I’m just saying,” he said sheepishly, “it’s just as easy to service both cars on the same day.”

“Mm-hmm.” She lazed against his shoulder. “Hey, I meant to ask you…what are your Thanksgiving plans?”

John shrugged. “Sweetheart, I don’t know what I’m doing next week, let alone end of the month. Usually we get Boston Market or something. Can’t see trying to do a whole bird in that postage stamp of an oven. Even if I _could_ cook.”

“You could—”

“No,” John said. It wasn’t gruff, or snappish, but it was decidedly final. “Like I said, Dean is already pretty sure something’s up. I told him to ask you for that ride.”

Beverly levered herself onto her elbow. “But why should that be such a signal, John? I mean…it’s not like I’m a stranger.”

“They’re used to relying on me or no one,” John told her. Again, though the statement was spoken mildly, there was a brusqueness that warned against pressing the subject.

“I suppose.” She leaned over to plant a kiss, but just as he threaded his fingers through her hair, his pager went off.

“Mmph,” John complained, disentangling himself. “I have to get that.”

“You’re on call for the garage?” she surmised.

“Sorry,” he muttered. He fumbled for his jeans and pulled the pager off the belt clip. It glowed green and beeped again. “Use your phone?” he requested.

“Yeah, sure.” She rolled across the bed for the phone on its cradle. “Here,” she said, handing it over. 

John dialed and identified himself. There was a long pause while the person he’d called held a one-sided conversation. “Yeah, hang on a second,” John said crisply. He covered the handset and motioned to Beverly for pen and paper. She nodded, pulled out a pad from her bedside table, and clicked the light on for him. While she collected his clothes, he scribbled several notes, grunting, and then repeated back the address. Beverly smirked at his spelling—he automatically used NATO phonetics. 

“Okay. It’ll be…about 25 minutes.” He hung up and gave her a hangdog look. “Sorry. I gotta go.”

“No problem,” Beverly said, showing him his clothes. He kissed her gratefully and dressed efficiently.

“So…when are you off next?” he asked. “You didn’t say.”

“Oh…Wednesday,” she said, distracted. She put on her robe to walk downstairs with him.

“Damn. I can’t Wednesday.”

“It’s all right, John.”

“Look, I’ll—”

“Call me?” Beverly finished for him. “Okay.” He kissed her again and slid out the door.

But he didn’t call. Sam and Dean didn’t come in for over a week. When they did show up again, Dean only said that their dad had been really busy and he’d told them to skip the after school program so the bus could take them straight home.

“How’s school?” she asked. Dean looked about to say something flip, but instead he told her, in no uncertain terms, that his teacher had it in for him.

“Why’s that?”

“We had this spelling bee an’ she disqualified me even though I spelled everything right. She hates it when I spell things the cool way,” Dean explained. 

“The cool way?” she asked.

Sam looked up and supplied the answer. “Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta….”

“Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India,” Dean joined in.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Beverly said. “You know, I think I know just the books for you,” she added, inspiration striking. She went and got _The King’s Fifth_ , _Kim_ , and several books from the _Men at Arms_ series.

Dean leafed through the books on arms and armaments first. “Cool,” he breathed. He picked up _Kim_. “What’s this about?” he frowned at the volume.

“It’s about a young man who lived in India and became a spy,” she said nonchalantly. She helped several other students with their selections while Dean casually opened the hardcover classic. Neil Phillips sat with Dean for a bit and they talked in whispers. Dean even showed Neil one of the illustrated plates and muttered something about the kind of rifle one of the soldiers was holding.

A little while later, Dean looked at his watch. “Aw, crap! C’mon, Sammy, we gotta go. Dad said to be out front by 4:30.” While he got his bag together, he said a hurried goodbye to Neil with a promise to see him in school.

Sam held up a finger and read to the end of the paragraph. “Okay,” he said, slamming the book on its bookmark and tossing the book into his backpack.

“Dean!” Beverly called to him. He stopped in his tracks and turned back. She pointed to the book still in his hand. He looked at it and after a moment’s debate, snatched Sam’s backpack off his shoulder. 

“Sammy, gimme your library card.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I want it.” Dean fished around while Sam tried ineffectually to retrieve his pack. Dean found the card and zipped up the pouch. “Go wait for Dad,” he told Sam, tossing the backpack, which Sam caught. “I’ll be right there.” He came back to the counter, handing over the book and his brother’s library card. 

“Have you…thought about your Christmas list yet?” Beverly asked in an effort for small talk, wisely choosing not to call attention to the seminal event of Dean borrowing a book.

Dean shrugged. “Oh, Dad’ll get us some clothes. I think Sam wants some Ninja Turtle thing.”

“But how about you, Dean? Is there something you want?” She didn’t bother to talk about Santa; it was clear he didn’t believe, and ten was too old for most kids, anyway. Especially with another friend sitting close enough to overhear.

“Well, honestly, if I had a Walkman, I could listen to our tapes even when I’m not in the car,” he confided. “But they’re expensive, aren’t they?”

“They can be,” Beverly agreed. “You’d better get going, if your father’s waiting.”

It occurred to her that Dean’s willingness to supply information spoke volumes. Perhaps she was making progress. If nothing else, she had some inside intelligence to give John. Her cynical side told her perhaps Dean meant for her to pass the ideas along, but that didn’t really matter. Somehow she suspected that with all John had going on, the boys’ Christmas presents were the last things on his mind. It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet. But a plan was forming slowly in her mind, something she could do for all of them. She’d have to be careful about floating it past John. Between his pride and his secretive nature, it would be difficult to bring about.

His left arm was in a sling when she saw him a few days later. His face was swollen on the left and his left eye looked like someone had rubbed it with a cheese grater. 

“Oh my God, what happened?” she asked.

John shook his head gingerly. “Just a bar fight. It’s nothing.”

“This happened in MacArthur’s?”

“No.” He tried to smile, winced, and touched the tip of his tongue to the split in the corner of his bottom lip. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Are you—I mean, are you going to charge the other guy with assault, at least?”

John looked at her as if she didn’t understand the basics of male interaction. “No need,” he said finally. “He was just…passing through. Long gone—by the time he could move again, after I’d kicked his ass.”

“When did this happen, though? There wasn’t anything on the news—”

“Oh, I’m not surprised.” He dismissed her protest. “Look, I said don’t worry about it.” He reached into his bag and pulled out some of Sam’s borrowed books. “Came to return these and do a little work of my own.”

“Where are the boys?”

“They’ll be here soon,” he said cryptically. “I wanted to talk to you alone for a minute.”

“Okay….” Beverly sensed bad news.

“Dean will barely put down the book he took out the other day,” John said. “I got home from my…from work, and he was on the couch completely engrossed.”

Beverly grinned widely. “That’s great! Isn’t it?” she asked, because John didn’t look overjoyed.

He nodded slowly, as if it hurt to move his head. “It’s great, don’t get me wrong.”

“Wait—you’re _not_ happy he found something he likes to read?”

“No—I’m glad. What I’m not glad about is that I keep having to take it away just so he’ll do his chores.”

“Well, John, you’re not the first parent who had to compete with gripping fiction.”

John grunted at her attempt to inject humor. “Yeah, well, I know you want to get his mind moving in the right direction—and believe me, he could use some hustle-up on his other schoolwork—but I rely on Dean to help me out. His homework takes him long enough—I don’t need him taking off on flights of…fantasy…when it’s Sam’s bath time.”

Beverly cocked her head. “John. You’re not making any sense. Dean’s only ten. You make it sound like he’s doing something wrong—no wonder he worries about your good opinion of him. You should be encouraging—”

He backed up a step as if she’d slapped him. “Don’t tell me how to raise my boys,” he said dangerously.

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Beverly said through clenched teeth, “except to keep your voice down in my library,” she added, unable to resist making the dig. “I’m just pointing out that Dean’s reading skills, his _thirst_ for learning, could use some spark.”

“Dean’s interest in learning is peachy, provided it’s something he wants to learn.” John dropped his head, cringing again. “I know,” he said more gently, “I know it seems backward.” He looked beyond her, wouldn’t meet her eye. Beverly couldn’t look away from the angry red and dark purple bruising around his eye, down the left side of his jaw. “Dean’s plenty smart, and he does just fine when he—what’s the word you teachers like to use—applies himself.”

Beverly didn’t rise to the bait or point out that she wasn’t a teacher. She opened her palm in a gesture to tell him to continue.

“Dean…Dean’s motivation is not like other kids’. When Mary—” he swallowed—”When Mary died, Dean didn’t talk afterward. Not for a long time; not at all at first, and then not more than a few words. What brought him back, what gave him a sense of purpose, was taking care of Sam. So sue me, I’ve used that. We all get by a little easier that way. Now, Sam can take care of some things for himself, but he’s still really young. And you might have noticed he’s a pretty…willful kid.”

Beverly remained stone-faced.

John sighed. He closed his eyes and took a moment to compose himself before continuing more calmly. “I give Dean plenty of time to slack off, when it won’t interfere with his chores or our schedule as a family. He can do what he wants when he’s older. But for a little while longer, I need him focused. I don’t need him deciding when he can shrug off his responsibilities.”

Beverly held his gaze for a moment. “Really?” she said when he didn’t say anything, either. “Christ, John, would Dean really be so worried about losing your interest or attention or whatever if you just gave it to him on his terms for a bit, instead of always using him for what you need?”

John stared at her. “That’s not what I meant—”

“I know it’s not. But it’s what you said,” she retorted. Finally John hung his head. She opened her drawer for her purse. “Come on, let’s get some coffee,” she said, “and you can tell me what’s really going on.”

John shook his head, but held his ground this time. “No, they should get here soon. I need to wait for them.”

“You said that before—what does that mean?”

John’s mouth twitched and he grunted in discomfort. “Urban orienteering,” he said. “But—later? Maybe dinner? It’s been a while since we had what you’d call a date.”

“I’m done here at six,” she said. Something was bothering him, that was sure, and it wasn’t the fact that Dean was reading Kipling.

Dean and Sam came in about half an hour later, pink-cheeked and a little sweaty. They ignored the children’s section, going instead to Reference where their father had retreated. A few minutes later they came back toward her, looking intensely pleased with themselves.

“You two look like you’ve had an adventure,” she commented.

“Boy, did we ever!” Sam said excitedly. “Dad blindfolded us an’ drove around for a while and then he let us out of the car an’—”

“Sammy,” Dean interrupted sternly.

“No, Dean, I want to hear. Go on, Sam, what were you saying?”

Sam looked nervously at his brother. At Beverly’s encouraging nod, he continued. “Um. Well, he let us out and took our blindfolds off, an’ he tol’ us to figure out where the libarry was from where we were.”

“I see,” she said, aware that a little disapproval was creeping into her tone, next to the confusion. “How far away were you from here?” she asked.

“Only about a mile,” Dean answered hastily. “Dad does that kinda stuff for us sometimes. Like when we go on hikes or when he takes us camping. It’s like being in Scouts.”

“S’better than Scouts,” Sam said, “‘cause Scouts hafta wear stupid uniforms.”

“Right,” Dean agreed. He looked proud, as if he’d taught Sam that scouting was inferior to their dad’s training.

Beverly could see the logic in a scouting troop of two, especially as John always seemed to be scraping by. Neither boy had seemed distraught or even mildly put out because of John’s methods of exercise. If they’d been in a big city, or if the boys were younger, she might have objected, tried to tell them how dangerous their idea of fun was.

But then, come to think of it, it was a lot _less_ dangerous than hanging around on the basketball courts trying drugs. It was healthier than sitting at home watching TV. A court probably wouldn’t understand the nuances, certainly wouldn’t see John as anything other than the labels he fit into: Vietnam veteran, widower, blue-collar worker, borderline alcoholic, obsessive-compulsive control freak. And if she called the cops on him, something warned her, they’d just pack up and run.

Like they’d run from Oklahoma.

Like they’d run from Wisconsin.

And there was no point being the cause of upheaval in their lives. Not when she had the opportunity to influence them toward stability.

“Hey, Dean,” she asked to change the subject, “Your dad says you’re really enjoying _Kim_.”

Dean chewed his lip. “Yeah. Kinda got sucked into it,” he mumbled.

“Well, that can happen sometimes,” she said gently. “The nice thing about a book is you can always put it down. It’ll still be there later.”

“It’ll take a while, though,” he sighed, “‘cause I’m s’posed to wait ‘til after we’re done with everything else. But that’s okay. We can read a little at night before Lights Out,” Dean volunteered. “Sammy’n’me’re readin’ it together,” he continued to explain quite confidently in response to her cocked eyebrow. “Well, I mean, I’m readin’ the good parts to him.”

“That’s great!” Beverly said with a big smile. “Well, when you do finish it, there’s more Kipling where that came from.”

“More what?”

Beverly blinked. “Rudyard Kipling, Dean. The author.”

“Oh,” Dean said, though it was clear that authorship or an author’s talent meant nothing to him. Only the story mattered.

“He wrote _The Jungle Books_ , too,” she explained.

That earned a wrinkled nose. “Sam likes Baloo, but I think the monkeys have the best song.”

Beverly nodded. The transition didn’t shock her. “Well, Kipling wrote the story on which the animated film is based. Anyway, let me know when you’re ready for more.”

“Yeah, okay,” he said, sadly noncommittal. It was obvious that he was humoring her now.

John returned a while later and they left. His wink (with his uninjured eye) served as the only promise that he’d see her that evening.

He called the library at 5:30. “So, should I pick you up? At home or at work?”

“Oh—no, let’s just meet wherever—your pick.”

“Okay. Uh…Andolino’s,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.

It was the best Italian in the area. “Are you sure?” It was also fairly expensive.

“Yeah. I had a good week.”

“John, you’re the only person I know who can call getting beaten to a pulp a good week.”

“What? Oh,” he said, sounding distracted, and then chuckled. “What can I say? I’ve got a hard head. I’ll call in a reservation—see you there at 18:30?”

“Okay.” Beverly hung up, overjoyed that Judith didn’t work on Sundays.

Over her seafood scampi and his scallops Fra Diavolo, she pitched the proposal that had been on her mind since she’d suggested Thanksgiving together. “Look—I know you’ll probably hate this idea, but… hear me out, okay?”

John scrunched up his face infinitesimally to allow her to continue.

“I asked Dean recently what he wanted for Christmas, and if you all had plans. He said you boys usually stay pretty low-key.”

“Yeah,” John said guardedly.

“Well, I usually get invited to my in-laws, but—I hate it,” she confided. With a deep breath, she plunged on very quickly, “What do you say you let me give you all a full-bore Christmas? I mean everything: Tree, turkey and trimmings, even a fire in my living room. The boys can wake up on Christmas morning with stockings and presents and the whole deal.”

John didn’t say anything right away. Oddly, it gave Beverly hope; she’d expected to be cut off and shut down before she could even throw in the crackling fire and cozy images of stockings. Silence meant John was actually thinking about it.

“I don’t want Dean to worry about…I mean, we’re not even friends as far as he knows.”

“If you say so,” Beverly said dubiously. She had a higher opinion of Dean’s observation skills than John, but if he wanted to live in denial, so be it. “I thought—well, maybe you could tell him ahead of time, so he’s reassured that it’s just for the holiday.”

John put down his fork (he’d been having a little trouble eating one-handed). “Let me think about it,” he said.

That was amazing progress, as far as she was concerned, so she was happy to agree. She didn’t mention it again all night.

It only occurred to her later that John never quite explained what had been eating him earlier, either.

 

~*~NOW~*~

When Dean pulled up to the Krispy Kreme in Toledo, there was still a police forensic team crawling around. Sam was all for coming back later, but Dean reached across him for the cigar box and pulled out two IDs. He flicked the card with Sam’s picture into Sam’s lap.

“Let’s go,” he said briskly.

“Too many cops,” Sam pointed out, as if Dean were five.

“Nah, they’re distracted. C’mon, Sammy.” He opened his door. “Live a little,” he offered as a parting shot, then climbed out. Sam closed his eyes in a silent prayer, but followed a moment later.

Dean took a quick survey of the officers and made a direct line for the cutest brunette of the bunch. She looked about four years older than him, but in Sam’s experience, age wasn’t nearly as important to Dean as other attributes—like a firm butt, a thin hourglass figure, a slightly naughty, flirtatious demeanor, and of course, that she be breathing.

Sam sauntered over to where Dean and the lady cop had approached each other across the police tape cordoning off the scene. Not surprisingly, they were deep in conversation. Dean’s FBI act had been, if anything, improved by his exposure to the real deal. It was a little sickening.

“Carolyn,” Dean was saying, “what my partner and I need from you all is access to the security tapes” He pointed up at the lens mounted on a nearby streetlamp. Can you tell me who can approve that?”

Carolyn sized up Sam as he arrived behind Dean. Immediately, she began speaking to him, instead of his brother. “I was just explaining to your partner that Deputy Chief Markowitz is running this investigation, and he’s currently at the coroner’s office. I can’t let you into the crime scene without his authorization.”

Dean opened his mouth to suggest she call Markowitz, but Sam nodded. “That’s all right, actually,” he said with a subtle brush against Dean’s arm to tell him he’d take point. “Can you give us directions to the ME’s office?”

“Sure,” she said. She looked stunned—and pleased—that Sam hadn’t tried to pull rank or whip out his dick for a pissing contest. “Give me one second, okay?”

“Okay,” Sam said charmingly. They waited while she walked back to her team, spoke to them for a minute, and then crossed to the side of the lot where their van was parked. When she came back, she had a piece of paper with the address and a little hand-drawn map.

“Here you go. Deputy Chief Markowitz should be there for at least another hour.”

“Great. Thanks,” Sam said. He flipped the page over. She’d written her number on it.

“We need those tapes,” Dean said as they walked to the car, “and how the hell are we gonna get in to the morgue when it’s full of cops, Sammy?”

“Dean. We’ll wait a couple hours and then go in. I think if we can look at the body, we can search it for—”

“Residue from possession, right,” Dean jumped in. “Hey, don’t most human forms of magic…doesn’t the person have to have some connection? Like a hex bag or something?”

“Yeah.”

“So we should check his personal affects, too.”

“Yeah. But first, let’s find the library.” He pulled out the map.

“Sure thing, Hermione,” Dean cracked, pulling out of the Krispy Kreme.

“Huh?” Sam squinted at his brother. “Dude, you know you get no points for calling me a name out of a kids’ book.”

They found the library to kill a couple hours. Sam checked some resources for likely spells that affected the spirits of suicides. He pulled up a number of sources. On impulse, he looked up some of the Mesopotamian books that had been on Lauren’s bookshelf. The lore from the ancient culture was difficult to parse, but he found a couple books on their religion and mythology. He switched to the library catalog and looked up the books he’d found, plus a couple of the more common resources on European witchcraft. The library had some, but not all, so he jotted down the call numbers and logged off.

Dean, meanwhile, had made himself busy with the back newspapers. By the time Sam returned with arms full of books to copy, Dean had a stack of printed microfiche.

“Guess what happened five years ago, Sammy?” he prompted.

“Suicide?” Sam guessed.

“Death by cop, and guess where?”

“Where the Krispy Kreme is now?” Sam said.

“Yahtzee,” Dean replied.

“Great,” Sam said, rolling his eyes. “Okay, well, take a book, start copying.”

They changed into suits in the men’s room after lunch and went on to the coroner’s office. A few minutes later, Dean had bluffed their way in and they were opening the slab with Gareth Barker on it.

“Man, I’m tired of corpses,” Sam said through a sigh. “Okay, GSWs to the chest, but no sulfur—that rules out demons for sure, Dean.”

“Yeah. Sam,” Dean said, pointing under the body’s arm. “That’s a weird spot for a tat, isn’t it?”

Sam bent down to peer at the mark. “Wait, it’s a pentagon,” he said. “Five points, look.” He rolled the corpse up and nodded at Dean so that Dean would lift the arm. The five dots were laid out in a perfect five-sided box. Inside the box were seven little triangles, all pointing in the same direction.

“Here we go again with five,” Dean said. “What the hell is up with that? And what’s that stuff in the middle?”

“I dunno,” Sam said. “But I’ve seen that other symbol before. Hang on, I think I have a way to find out. Uh… Watch the entrance, okay? I wanna get some stuff from the car.”

“Okay,” Dean agreed. To his credit, although he bugged his eyes out like Sam was completely nuts, he didn’t argue.

Sam went back outside and grabbed up the ingredients for a summoning spell. If he could summon the spirit—either of Barker or of whoever had possessed him—it might give them a solid lead, something they were sorely lacking at the moment.

He brought the duffel of equipment back with him. When he started unpacking, Dean looked over the scene. “You’re summoning Barker?”

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Sammy.”

“Got a better plan?” Sam barked. “Because I don’t feel like waiting another two days while this thing decides to possess someone else.”

“Okay, Sam, okay,” Dean backed off, “I’m not objecting. I just…it’s broad daylight.”

“Yeah, which is why I need you to cover the door, Dean,” Sam said testily.

Dean moved away. He was silent until Sam finished setting up (Spongebob side down and candles arrayed on the nearby tables). “Are you feeling okay?”

“Apart from this job being one string of dead ends, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Dean said, like he didn’t believe it, but wasn’t going to push. He leaned on the doorjamb where he could see out the window to the hallway beyond.

Sam read the incantation. Though it had been a while since he had summoned Father Gregory, the ritual went smoothly for him, even in the daylight. [Within thirty seconds, light around Barker coalesced into a spectral image.](http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa251/hillmanlee/FiftyPercent%20Art/FiftyPercentPic9.png)

“Where am I?” the spirit asked.

“We’ll get to that,” Sam assured it hastily. “Mr. Barker, it’s very important that you concentrate. Do you remember anything about the last week?”

“I..,uh…I was at the bar,” he stammered.

“Okay, good,” Sam said, “then what?”

“I dunno, uh…I…there was this guy.”

“What did he look like? Did he start speaking, maybe in a foreign language?”

“No. It’s hard to…where am I?” he said. “Is that…is that…. Oh, God, am I dead?”

“Gareth, stay with me,” Sam coaxed, stepping between Gareth and his earthly remains. “Just a little while longer, okay, a few more questions, and you can move on. I promise.” He held out his hands in a capitulating gesture. “What bar were you at?”

“Uh…L-Lowell’s. Lowell’s Tavern.”

Sam looked at Dean incredulously.

“Isn’t that the bar that David Owen disappeared from?” Dean verified.

“Yeah, and the one Lauren Kennedy came to,” Sam confirmed. “Gareth…what happened with the guy? Did he speak to you, did he knock you out?”

“I…think maybe he roofied me,” Gareth said. “I don’t remember leaving the bar.”

“Okay, what did he look like? Did he tell you his name?”

“Name? Uh…Mike. No, Mark. No…Malcolm. I think. Something like that.”

“Great,” Dean observed. “Sam, wrap it up, dude, this is weird.” He kept glancing into the hallway nervously.

“Hey, I’m the dead guy, here!” Gareth said. He seemed to be getting used to the idea. Unfortunately, that meant he started shimmering around the edges.

“Wait, wait, wait, Gareth, man, don’t go yet!” Sam cried hastily. “Stay with us, Gareth. Is there anything else you can tell us?”

“Well…. I think I kinda went away for a while. I was watching this guy for a few days…. I didn’t feel hungry or anything. But then it felt like…there was someone else with me. And he said…he said we had to get away, away from the man we were watching. He said if we did something…violent, that we’d be released. I don’t remember anything else until…” he looked at Sam in horror, “was I shot?”

Sam nodded slowly, clenching his jaw with a pained expression. “You…you killed two people, then charged a cop,” he told Gareth, “but we think you weren’t in control of yourself.”

“Yeah, Gareth, did you feel like someone or something was in there with you?” Dean asked, using his version of Dad’s Marine voice. “Y’know, forcing you aside, doing what it wanted to do?”

“Uh..,yeah,” Gareth said. He flickered. “Yeah, it did feel like that.” His edges glowed brighter. “And—Namru,” Gareth said. 

“Namru?” Dean parroted. “Namru? What the hell does that mean?”

Sam shrugged and started to ask, but Gareth flickered again, and began to shine white. He broke up in a stream of light.

“Gareth! Gareth—wait!” Sam held out his hands, but it was too late. He hadn’t even gotten to the part about the tattoo. Gareth was gone.

 

~*~THEN~*~

John floored Beverly completely by agreeing to bring Sam and Dean over to her house for Christmas. Less surprisingly, he had a lot of parameters.

“I don’t want you going crazy with presents,” he said as they sat in front of her fire over a late-night drink—beer for him and wine for her. “They get one major gift every year from Santa—well, at least, Sammy still thinks it’s Santa—so I mean it, Bev—you’ll be doing enough already.”

“Fair enough,” she allowed, because honestly she hadn’t been planning a disproportionately generous Christmas. “Let me help out with that Santa present, at least.”

John hesitated. “Tell you what. You can help…if you’re willing to go to the mall.”

“Deal.”

“Good. I hate malls.”

“Spoken like a red-blooded American man. Now, what about stockings?”

He cast his eyes upward in exasperation. “Nothing over five bucks,” he ruled, “and avoid a lot of candy. Dean would eat junk food all the time if you let him, and Sammy gets too hyper after more than a candy bar.”

“No problem.”

“We can put the boys in the guest room at the end of the hall,” he continued next, “and I’ll put my gear in the other one.”

Beverly grinned knowingly, but didn’t object. It was up to John where he slept and she understood he was most nervous about maintaining a fiction for the boys. She imagined he might have a bit of a hang-up about performing, with his sons in the house, too. But she didn’t dare tease him about that.

“I’ll have to get a tree this year, dig out the old ornaments,” she thought aloud instead. “Would it help or hurt if I invited all three of you to trim the tree?”

John pulled his chin. “Help, maybe. Yeah. They’d like it.”

“And I was thinking, then the invitation to stay over won’t seem unprecedented.”

“Good point.” He paused, and in the glow of the fire, she could see him ticking down his mental list. “Oh—dinner,” he said when he got to it. “First, don’t be afraid to make the boys help—they’re used to it and it’ll seem less like a vacation for them.”

“If you say so,” she said, shrugging.

“Second…Dean doesn’t eat peas and Sam hates…basically any form of vegetable.” 

“Is there one he hates least?” she asked, shifting away from him to sip her wine.

“Yeah—peas.” He laughed and she barely avoided snorting her wine. “But I think that’s just because Dean hates ‘em.”

“Well, I’ll figure something out. What about green bean casserole?”

“That’s the stuff with the onion rings?”

“Yep.”

“Theoretically it should work,” he mused.

“Okay. Any other dietary restrictions?”

“No, they’ll make do. Oh—pie.”

“What about it?”

“The more the better.”

“Don’t worry. There will be pie. Pumpkin, apple, and mincemeat.”

As December went on, though, John’s anxiety over Christmas grew. He hid it well, but when they came to help set up the tree, he barely looked at her, focusing instead on the boys. Understandably, she thought: He would want a happy memory of his children as they hung ornaments. He lifted Sam onto his shoulders to put the star on the top branch, and when Sam climbed down, and John twisted toward the living room couch, his eye caught Beverly’s. And she saw that the spark his boys had lit there faded when he saw her. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for her, but she recognized the echo of loss that still carried aftershocks six years later. He had turned, not expecting to see Mary; nonetheless he was taken aback when the woman in his sight had brown hair and didn’t bear his wife’s face. His smile had faltered—only for a moment—but when he put it back on again, there was a hint of forced mirth. Still, it was an unexpected gap in the armor she had come to recognize, a crack in John’s veneer of self-discipline.

After that, Beverly continued with the motions right up to Christmas, but in the back of her mind, she did some hard thinking. As wonderful as it was to see Sam and Dean savoring their textbook holiday, she wasn’t doing it just for them. John enjoyed it vicariously through his boys, but she could tell as he bedded them down in the guest room on Christmas Eve, as they shared eggnog by her fire, as Christmas morning dawned and the boys ripped into their presents, that John would rather have been alone with them, not putting up a pretense of pleasure to salve his loneliness—or someone else’s. She barely slept the next night, realizing how her well-meant suggestion had turned to something so painful that he was barely holding himself together.

So she was prepared when he came over on December 26th to apologize for not being as appreciative as he should have been. 

“Dean really loves the Walkman,” he told her.

“Yes, he’d said he wanted one.”

“He did?” John frowned. “Spying at the library?”

Beverly grinned. “Not really. I asked what he wanted; he told me. Remember that he didn’t have any idea he was snitching on himself,” she told him, even though she suspected he had known exactly that. “Actually, that’s what gave me the idea.”

“Oh,” John said, surprise in his voice, as if putting the pieces together. 

“Coffee?” she suggested, leading him to the kitchen. “And there’s leftover pie.”

“Yeah, great,” he agreed.

She brewed a pot of fresh coffee and warmed up the pie in the microwave. He sat at her table, supposedly watching, but really thinking so hard that she could hear him even when she stuck her head in the fridge for the cream. When she sat down and slid the slice of apple pie across the table in front of his hands, he stared at it for a moment. Then he leaned his forehead into his palm and began to cry.

It was so utterly unlike anything she ever expected out of John Ephraim Winchester that it took Beverly a full minute to decide how to respond. She got up, silently moved beside him, and gently put her arms around his shoulders. She feared he might push her away—prepared to jump back, if he did—but he turned his head into her stomach and clutched her around the waist. She stroked his hair, still not saying anything, for another couple minutes before he drew a ragged, steadying breath and let up the pressure against her back. She let him withdraw, handed him a couple napkins, and artfully turned away to wipe off her sweater. She swiped and fussed over the pilling wool until she could hear that he had composed himself.

“Sorry,” he said. His voice was hoarse, though he hadn’t sobbed aloud at all.

“It’s okay,” she told him very softly.

“I don’t know where that came from,” he claimed.

“Don’t you?” Beverly resisted the urge to smile. “I think I do. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

“I just…. Christmas was—perfect. Too perfect, really.”

“Mm-hm,” she said, and thought, _Here it comes_.

“I’ve kept asking myself for the past six years why I have to drag the boys all over the country. Most people—they lose a loved one, they start over, you know? I mean, I’m never—I could have settled the boys with someone…someone they’d look at as a mother. I could have left them somewhere safe.”

Beverly didn’t understand that, but she said nothing and let him talk out whatever confession he needed to make. He spoke as if the words were being ripped from him, like it hurt to speak them.

“But there’s nowhere safe, nowhere they’ll be protected, except with me. And I’ve been so afraid of—losing someone else—putting someone else in danger, because of us—I haven’t ever…allowed myself to get in close. Until now.” He looked up, eyes red and a little puffy from the tears. It occurred to Beverly that just last week, there had still been a yellowish tint to the skin around the left one, but now it was whole again, apart from a tiny scar like a vertical crow’s foot.

She still didn’t know what to say, though, so she just nodded once. It seemed to be the permission he was looking for to continue.

“And I thought…. I allowed myself to think…maybe something was pushing me here. Maybe there’s a reason we stayed here so long.”

“Four months?” Beverly was shocked into saying.

John nodded solemnly. “For us, that’s a lot.” He said with a little embarrassment, “Dean and I have had some…issues to work out. But he—I think he’s ready again.”

“Ready?”

“For me to get back to work,” John told her. “And it’s true for me, too, Beverly. I—I didn’t mean to get in this close. I’m sorry.”

Beverly took a sip of coffee—now more than cool enough to drink, and bordering on tepid. “I don’t understand what you mean by all that, John, but the sorry part? That I’ve been waiting for.”

“You have?” John looked aghast. “How long?”

“Since yesterday,” Beverly admitted, “No, actually—before that. Probably since you brought Dean and Sam to trim the tree.”

“Why didn’t you…?” John shook his head and took a gulp of coffee.

“Well, I think I was denying it as much as you—not necessarily believing the signs. I think I may have been hoping you’d get past it by the holiday.”

John shook his head again, regretfully. “Made it worse.”

“Yeah, I’d noticed,” Beverly said, hoping it didn’t sound bitter. “But hey, for what it’s worth, John, it was a good run. Honestly, I’d never figured you’d be good for more than a brief fling, anyway.”

John let out a laugh and crinkled his eyes at her gratefully. “Good to know where I stand,” he said with amusement. He looked down and saw the pie as if he’d forgotten it was there. “God, I ruined your—”

“No, you didn’t. I didn’t do Christmas for me, or even for you. I did it for Dean and Sam.”

John smiled sadly, closed-lipped. “Thank you.”

Beverly thought about the jacket she’d bought him, putting Dean’s and Sam’s names on the package and telling Sammy so he would feel better about having something for his father. So, maybe she hadn’t done it all for them, maybe some of it was for John. She thought about her secret wish that John would look at her the way Tom had, would decide to stay for longer than a few hours, or even overnight. Okay, she’d done it for herself, too. But she’d known even then that it was a fantasy, and that the conversation they were having now had been waiting in the wings since the day he’d walked into the library. Anyway, what John needed to hear this moment was that it wasn’t about them, and that was more important than her slightly mixed-up feelings, motivations, and reactions. He’d never asked her to fall in love.

“Besides, I still don’t really want to try filling Mary’s shoes,” she lied. “Even if you thought I could. I’d be flattered, by the way,” she added earnestly, “but I think we both know I’m not Mom material.”

“Huh,” John muttered, which could have meant anything.

“So…does this mean the Winchesters are hitting the open, if snowy, road?” she surmised.

A pained look passed over John’s face. He laced his fingers and twisted them back and forth. “Well. That’s kind of a problem. See, Dean’s birthday—it’s not until the end of January. And for once, we’ve been somewhere long enough that he’s got friends—friends who want him to have a birthday party.”

Beverly shrugged. “Parties are pretty important to kids.”

John grimaced. “Not Dean. He couldn’t care less, usually, long as Sammy an’ me are around. And there’s cake.”

“I guess I’m not seeing the problem, then, if he doesn’t want a party.”

“No—he _does_.” He cupped his left hand in his right and twisted his wedding ring absently. “If I pull us out of here, well, we can be settled in somewhere else before school starts again. But if I do that—you gotta understand, Dean would never complain. Not in a million years. But he’d take it the wrong way.”

“Okay…” Beverly said slowly. “I still don’t get it.”

John sighed. “Dean, he—well, he screwed the pooch last summer. I blame myself, but the point is that he knows I was plenty pissed at him at the time. Remember how I said he’s terrified I’ll disown him for messing up?”

Beverly nodded.

“Well, that’s why. I’ve been trying to prove to him that we’re okay. But I pull him out without his birthday—”

“Oh, I see. He’ll decide you _are_ mad at him, punishing him deliberately.”

“Exactly.” He rubbed his forehead as if the dilemma gave him a headache.

“Well, don’t you think you should just tell him you’re not mad at him anymore?”

John swallowed. He shook his head.

“You _are_ still mad at him,” she said angrily. “Christ, John, he’s just a kid. Whatever he did or didn’t do, you can’t still blame him for it.”

“I don’t,” he said, sounding hoarse. “I blame myself. But there was a lesson and Dean had to learn it,” he insisted.

“You’re impossible.”

“So I’ve heard,” he said ruefully. “But…I’ve been thinking about what you said. About letting Dean have something on his own terms? He wants this. He won’t say it, but he wants it. And I want to give it to him.”

“Well, then…stay, anyway. Don’t let breaking up with me chase you out of town.”

“No, I have to move on.” He scrubbed his face. “There’s no work here—I’ve pretty much tapped the area for the time being.” His elbows came to rest on the table and he leaned his cheek on one hand.

“The garage—”

“I’m not talking about the garage.”

“Oh, your research?”

John nodded, thumb against his lower lip. He sipped the coffee and made a face.

“Here, let me warm that up,” she said, taking the mug back to the microwave. Thirty seconds later, she brought it back and nuked her own cup. She realized it was no use. They’d pulled up stakes before and they would undoubtedly do it again, despite her urging. “Well, how about President’s Day? That’s winter break. Just as easy to transfer then.”

John considered that, but Beverly could tell when he rejected the idea. “It’s a good time to move them, I agree. But I can’t stay. Bev, I wondered… I mean, I know you keep saying you don’t want kids. But… you know them. They like you. I’m sure it’s too much to ask, but—”

“You want me to take care of Sam and Dean for a month and a half so you can bug out and live the life of an itinerant bachelor?”

John blinked. Beverly regretted stating the situation so baldly. It was clear he’d taken himself way out of his comfort zone to even ask, and she’d mocked him as her own defense mechanism. She could see him take the insult on the chin, though, and he nodded as if to acknowledge the fairness of her shot. “No. I… nevermind,” he said abashedly, sliding out of the chair in retreat.

“John,” she called. He froze, but didn’t turn around. “I’ll do it.”


	5. Part Five

~*~NOW~*~

“Well, one thing’s for certain,” Dean said when they got back to the car, “if we don’t catch this thing in the next two days, someone else’ll be getting ganked in a week.”

“We don’t know that anyone will die,” Sam said. “Barker could have been a fluke. But it’s a good bet that someone here in Toledo will wind up in Columbus.”

“At Lowell’s Tavern, no doubt.”

“Yeah.”

“Super,” Dean complained. “So now we’re so far ahead of this thing that we have to wait for it.”

“Well, hang on,” Sam muttered. He was looking at the picture of Barker’s tattoo—or whatever it was—he’d snapped with his phone. “We may be able to anticipate something about the next victim. I know I’ve seen that symbol. Recently.” He reached over the bench for his laptop bag and booted up the computer.

“Where are we going, Sam?” Dean asked.

“Hang on a second.”

Dean ignored him and pulled out, but Sam saw why when he looked up. An unmarked car was parking right near when they had been sitting. Dean drove a few streets away until he found a Starbucks and parked.

“Want anything?”

Sam shook his head, pulling up some of the files he’d been looking at the night before. Dean climbed out. 

“Dude, you might as well be staring at hieroglyphics, man,” Dean said, rolling his eyes as he stomped away.

Sam’s head popped up to watch Dean’s back through the driver’s window. Hieroglyphics! He remembered where he’d seen the symbol before, and it wasn’t on his computer. He dug through the satchel for the photocopied pages. By the time Dean returned with coffee, Sam had found the page. “I knew I’d seen that symbol. Look.” He held out the page with its table and tapped on the seven little triangles in their double row. “It’s cuneiform, Sumerian writing, Dean. It’s the symbol for five.”

“Five?” Dean frowned. “But there’s seven of ‘em.”

“Yeah, the Sumerians used two triangles, one on top of the other, as the symbol for zero.”

Dean swiveled his head toward him. “How could you possibly know that?”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I…saw the books in Lauren’s room and…I got curious.”

“So you just happened to look this stuff up, what, today? Yesterday?”

The corner of Sam’s mouth twitched. “Today,” he confessed.

Dean stared at him.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“Dude, you are seriously freakish sometimes.” Dean started the car. “Okay, it’s the symbol for five, and it’s Sumerian.”

“Yeah, and I think the name Namru is, too. Hang on,” Sam flipped through the stack of paper. “I think I saw something when I was photocopying. We can stay here and look through this stuff, or we can head back down to Columbus and try to find this Mike, Mark, Malcolm guy.”

Dean pulled out. “We’ll be in Columbus in two hours, dude. Research fast.”

After an hour on the road, Sam looked up from his stack. “Yeah. Namru—he was a god of resurrection and science.”

“And five?”

“Well, numerologically speaking, the number five symbolizes life, regeneration, identity, and the self. And sometimes, nothingness.”

Dean sucked his teeth, but thankfully declined to take an easy shot at Sam’s esoterica. “Okay, so anything involving the god Namru is likely to have a lot of fives hanging around it?”

“I guess, and the spirit of a suicide is definitely the combination of nothingness and self.”

“I suppose,” Dean murmured. “So, have you figured out what’s going on?”

“No, but I know if we can find this guy at Lowell’s, we might be able to stop it.”

“Awesome.” Dean blinked at the road. “Huh,” he said, as if a thought had just struck him.

“What?”

“Well, I just realized. Columbus to Cleveland? Toledo to Columbus. Same distance, man. Hundred and fifty miles.”

“Seriously?” Sam said—not because he didn’t believe Dean on driving distances, but because he couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to him, either. “Where’s the map?”

Dean jerked a thumb toward the back seat. Sam unbuckled his seatbelt and hung over the bench to dig around. Dean protested immediately, “Get your ass out of my rearview!” but Sam ignored him. He found the map (after making sure Dean would regret smacking him on the back of his thighs) and flopped back into the seat. To his vast amusement, Dean was unrolling his window as fast as possible.

“What the hell, man?” Dean was griping.

“Hang on,” Sam said. He refolded the map to show both Toledo and Cleveland at the top and Columbus at the bottom, and traced a direct line from each northern city down to the southern one. “Holy shit,” he said. “It’s a Roman numeral five, Dean.”

“Oh, now that’s just weird,” Dean said.

Sam scoffed. “Everything we’ve ever done, and this is what’s weird for you?”

Dean opened his hands on the wheel to shrug. “Whatever.”

They made it back to Columbus well before the end of the workday. Dean headed straight for Lowell’s. They flashed Gareth’s picture at the bartender—a different one from the night they’d come around asking about Lauren’s bar fight. “Was this guy in here a little less than a week ago?” Dean asked brusquely.

“Maybe,” he said. Sam handed him a twenty. “Yeah, he was here. Talking to Mitch.”

“Mitch?” Sam echoed.

“Mitch Fallon,” came the answer. “He comes in every couple days.”

“Okay,” Dean said in a professional tone, “could you point him out if he comes in?”

The bartender crossed his arms. “Mitch is a regular. If you’re looking to mess him up—”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Sam said quickly. “Honest, we just need to talk to him. He was with a friend of ours who went missing a little while ago.”

Dean reached for his wallet and pulled out a fifty. “Just bring us a couple shots of tequila if he comes in tonight, okay?”

“If he comes in,” the guy said dubiously. “He’s usually studying on Tuesday nights.”

“Studying?” Sam asked. This was a biker-bar, not a hot spot for intellectuals.

“Yeah, he’s a grad student at OSU.”

“Do…you know what he’s studying?”

The bartender shrugged. “Uh…I dunno, something about ancient history? Linguistics? Something like that.”

“Mesopotamian history?” Sam pressed.

“No idea.” He moved down the bar to pour for another customer.

They sat; they ordered. Dean decided darts were the thing and talked Sam into throwing a round with him. About an hour and a half later, a group of guys walked in. They were dressed in leather like most of the others, except that they leaned toward the Goth end of the spectrum, with spiked hair, eyeliner, and a few choice piercings alongside their dog collars, jackets, and biker gloves. 

The bartender’s eyes flicked over to Sam and Dean, then followed the threesome as they took up a booth near the back. 

“Look alive, think we’re up,” Dean said, slapping Sam’s arm with one hand while tipping up his beer with the other. 

Sure enough, a few minutes later the waitress, who looked like she could double as a bouncer, if necessary, brought over two shot glasses of tequila. “Larry says these are for you two,” she announced with disapproval. “He said they don’t go on your tab,” she added, in a way that threatened that they’d better be reflected in her tip.

“Yeah, we, uh, we paid for ‘em when we came in,” Sam told her through his best boyish smile. One of their marks came back to the bar to pay for a billiard rental and headed back to the others.

The waitress harrumphed and moved on to other tables. Dean looked at Sam for a moment, head cocked, then he wiggled his eyebrows once and launched out of his chair. Sam watched him go to the bartender and return a moment later with a rack of billiard balls and two cues. “C’mon, Sam, let’s go,” he said as he passed their chairs. Sam nodded. He thought he had an idea of what Dean had in mind. He grabbed their beers, leaving the tequila untouched, and joined Dean to play his shill. 

“Did Larry tell you which one is Mitch?” Sam asked Dean when he got to the table.

“Yeah,” Dean answered, not looking at the other group at all. “Nebbishy guy in the crewneck, not playin’—jus’ watchin’.” He set up the balls and broke, all business. 

Sam could shoot pool almost as well as Dean, but since he’d hit a growth spurt in tenth grade, he’d hated the game. The billiard table was always too low for him. By the time he set up five shots, his back began to complain from the constant leaning over. So he usually left the hustling to Dean. But occasionally, Dean needed help hooking his fish, so either Dad or, more recently, Sam, had to set up the take. They’d put themselves through an average round of eight-ball, each one shooting a couple scratches and a number of outright misses, until the mark they wanted to grift took notice—and took the bait.

Dean had set up at the next table over from Mitch and his friends, which they in turn had chosen because it was near the booth where they had stashed their jackets and messenger bags. His friends seemed old for Goths, but they still rocked the black eyeliner and the leather with too many zippers. Mitch was dressed like them, but didn’t wear it as easily. He reminded Sam of a kid still learning how to be comfortable in his own skin.

After Dean sank his third scratch on an attempted side pocket shot, Sam saw that Mitch was watching their game more than his buddies. He was following Dean’s hands, as if memorizing the rhythm of their travel would improve his own game. Sam decided it was time to reel in the fish. 

“Man, you suck,” he said loudly to Dean.

“Oh, bite me,” Dean replied genially. “I’m just not warmed up yet.”

“Yeah, whatever. More beer?” Sam asked.

Dean grunted, drained his mug, and handed it over. As Sam headed for the bar for refills, he heard Dean call to Mitch, “Hey, how about you, man? You play?”

When Sam got back, Dean was racking up the balls and Mitch had taken Sam’s cue.

“Sammy, this dude’s gonna show you how it’s done,” Dean announced. Though his voice sounded friendly to anyone else, Sam could hear the tightness in it.

“Oh, probably not,” Mitch said. He was certainly more of a nerd than the others, especially for in here. Sam thought of that unfortunate scriptwriter back in Hollywood—Walter. He’d thought he could dabble in controlling spirits, too, and it had got him killed. He’d been motivated by a desire to use knowledge of the supernatural for fame. What was it about guys who seemed so harmless on the outside? Sam guessed maybe they’d been pushed one too many times around the schoolyard. Sort of the supernatural equivalent of Columbine killers.

Mitch held his cue too tightly, so that it skipped off the cue ball when he tried to put English on it. Dean was going to have to trash his game just to give Mitch a chance. Dean noticed it too, from the way he raised his eyebrows and widened his eyes slightly when Sam handed him his beer.

“Oh, hey, Mitch, this is Sam,” Dean said, not bothering with an alias, but also not explaining who “Sam” was, giving him room to work an angle.

Mitch waved, index finger extended and the rest of his hand curled loosely. “You guys, uh, passing through, or what?”

“We’re visiting our aunt,” Sam said. “Just…there’s only so many evenings with the relatives that you can take, I guess.”

“What about you, Mitch?” Dean asked, deliberately missing a slot shot on the five-ball. “This doesn’t exactly look like your kind of place.”

“Yeah, it’s cool, right?” Mitch said, looking around. “I can’t stand college clubs. Everyone’s such a poseur, y’know?”

His friends agreed loudly. Dean fought back a broad smile and Sam could tell he was suppressing a smartass remark.

“Oh, you’re in college?” Sam asked to make conversation before Dean’s resistance broke down. He wondered how long they’d have to maintain the friendly act before they could separate him from his pals. Sam was certain they were no threat, but if they were all regulars, the last thing he and Dean needed was to fend off an entire biker bar. Especially one that had just seen a nasty fight a couple weeks ago.

“Grad school,” Mitch corrected. “I’m studying Ancient Mechanics.”

“Come again?” Dean said with a head jiggle. 

“Ancient Mechanics. I’m sort of making up my own program. It’s a combination of anthropology, ancient languages, and physics.”

“To do what?” Dean pressed. “Figure out how to bring back that Mohawk?” He pointed at Mitch’s friend’s hair.

Mitch glanced at his friend, but didn’t seem to understand that Dean was twitting him. “Uh, no. I’m looking at the way ancient cultures believed the world worked and um, through that, how they conceived of and responded to technology—wow,” he interrupted himself. “That was some shot.”

“Huh?” Dean looked down. He hadn’t been paying attention to screwing up his pool game and he’d just banked off the end bumper, skittering the nine and the three toward the side pockets. The nine slid off the table and sank; the three was lined up perfectly.

“Oh. Flukey, huh? Wow,” Dean observed of his own performance. He over-cocked the angle so that when he shot, the ball had too much backspin and it rolled wide of the three. 

“So…ancient mechanics?” Sam picked up on the interrogation. “Like how ancient?”

“Well, as far back as I can go. Antiquity and pre-antiquity, really. I mean, Greek and Egyptian, sure, but I’m more interested in the Mesopotamian cultures—Sumeria, Akkadia, Chalcedon, that kind of thing.” He lined up his shot and took it; his ball didn’t go in, but it did mess up Dean’s next lineup for the three.

“That’s pretty obscure,” Sam said.

“Yeah, but there’s new stuff getting discovered all the time,” Mitch said. His eyes lit up and he became much more animated. His enthusiasm made him relax a lot more, and Sam found him smart, funny, and pleasant when he forgot to act cool. He nattered at Sam about his thesis proposal and the fantastic book he’s just got three and a half weeks previously from a rare dealer.

“I mean, technically, it should be in a museum, right? Not my apartment. But man—it’s just amazing. The kinds of dedications they made to Namru—he was their god of science and resurrection. See, his priests believed that all mechanical devices had life forces that kept regenerating, which is how they kept working continuously. Did you know that they had all the elements necessary for an internal combustion engine?”

“Izzat right?” Dean commented. “What do you know—you say you got this about three weeks ago?” He wasn’t looking at Mitch, though; he was looking at Sam. Sam returned Dean’s angry stare with a grim nod.

“Yeah, just about.”

“Wouldn’t happen to be in—what’s the word, Sam—”

“Cuneiform.”

“Cuneiform, right. It wouldn’t happen to be in their glyphs, would it?”

“Well…yes,” Mitch admitted uneasily. “It’s a transcription of several monuments and tablets. The book was hand-drawn by a Cistercian—”

“Okay,” Dean cut him off. “Let’s cut to the chase. Mitch, have you been…translating the book?”

“Well, yeah. It’s part of my dissertation—”

“And have you been reading it out loud?” Dean pressed urgently.

“Uh…y-yes.”

His friends picked up on Dean’s accusatory tone. “Problem, Mitch?” one of them asked, trying to be menacing.

“I…don’t think so, Mark,” Mitch said. Sam looked at Dean. 

“Your name is Mark?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you a grad student, too?” Dean said. Sam could tell he was trying not to be a smart-ass, but he just couldn’t help it.

“Yeah, so?” Mark asked. 

Sam pulled out Gareth Barker’s picture. “Do you know anything about this guy?” 

Mark stared at the photo. “No,” he said flatly.

“Yeah,” Mitch said. “Don’t you remember, Mark? He was here…like a week ago? I took his business card.” He moved to the booth and flipped open his bag. “He was interested in my theories about mass-production using ancient designs as inspiration.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah, I…have it here, somewhere,” Mitch fished for the business card, shambling back toward them. 

“Why are you looking for this guy?” Mark asked.

“We’re not. He’s dead.”

Mitch fumbled the card. It fluttered out of his hand and he leaned heavily against the pool table.

“Dead?”

“He showed up in Toledo yesterday and blew away two people before getting shot by police. The thing is, Mitch, or Mark,” Dean said, facing off against both of them, “you guys might have been the last people to talk to him.”

“Are you cops?” Mark asked.

“We’re investigating his death,” Sam supplied. “Mitch, we have reason to believe that, crazy as this sounds, his death and your book are connected. Can you take us to see it?”

Mitch shrugged. “Well, yeah, but you can’t read Sumerian, isn’t gonna do you much good. Are you serious? This isn’t like, _Punk’d_ or something?”

“We’re serious, Mitch,” Sam told him grimly.

Mitch shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why should you think I had anything to do with this guy? He died in Toledo.”

Dean crossed his arms. “Because witnesses said Barker was talking about Namru,” he snapped. “Now, since that’s not a word that generally comes up in casual conversation, and you happen to have a lot to say about this Namru guy, we thought we’d just ask you a question or two about the book.”

“Yeah, we…just thought you might have some information,” Sam added to soften Dean’s impatience.

Mark shrugged. “They want to ask questions about whether an ancient pagan god has something to do with a random guy’s death, Mitch, I say make sure they pay you for it.” He turned back to his pool game.

Mitch, meanwhile, had gone a bit pale. He glanced at Mark’s back, then said quietly to Sam, “I didn’t know…I mean, I just thought…what’s the harm?”

“Mitch, what’d you do?” Dean demanded, voice low, but loud.

“Let’s…go to my apartment. I’ll show you.”

Mitch rode in the back and gave Dean directions to his place. When they entered, he made straight for the side table. Sam saw candles, a small idol in the shape of a lion-headed god, a collection of herbs in a shallow bowl…. “An altar? You built an altar?”

“To Namru, yeah,” Mitch admitted. “But I didn’t think it would mean anything. I just…thought it’d be cool, y’know? A little immersion.”

“Mitch, people have been disappearing,” Sam said urgently. “They go missing, and then five days later, they turn up committing some awful crime. Why is that, Mitch? What’s in this book that makes them do that?”

“What!?” Mitch said, completely shocked and looking a little shaken and scared. “No, that’s—that’s impossible, that’s not what the ritual—”

“Ritual?” Both Dean and Sam said at the same time. “What ritual?” Sam barked.

“Uh…the ritual I found. It’s supposed to…uh, make the caster…well, y’know. Attractive. To women. It’s supposed to grant vitality and longevity.”

“And you’ve been conducting this ritual?” Sam concluded.

“Y-yeah. It says you’re supposed to recite it once per week for five weeks. The first part captures spirits and holds them in Limbo, watching over you from beyond. After five days, you light the candle and finish with a second incantation, and that…that releases the spirits back into the world. Oh, god. You can’t seriously think that it’s real?”

“Oh, it’s real,” Dean said confidently. “What’s more, your little spellwork is costing people their freedom and their lives.”

“Look,” Sam said, pulling Mitch to sit down so that he could explain. “You did the ritual for the first time three weeks ago, right? That same night, you summoned a spirit. The spirit of someone who’d committed suicide near where you were.”

“Namru collected the souls of suicides so they could be reborn,” Mitch muttered.

“Yeah, genius move, there,” Dean groused.

Sam waved him off to calm him down. “That spirit, I don’t know why, but it didn’t come here to you. It possessed someone else at the bar. David Owen.”

Mitch put his head in his hands. “This is impossible.”

“No, it’s not, Mitch. Look, you said five days later, you release the spirit?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, five days later, David Owen showed up outside of Cleveland, a hundred and fifty miles away. He committed an arson, and when the cops arrested him, he had no idea where he’d been or what he’d been doing.”

“Coincidence,” Mitch insisted. “And why would he go to Cleveland?”

“This sounds nuts,” Sam agreed, “but spirits don’t usually like to be summoned back. We think they tried to get away from you. Maybe a hundred and fifty miles is as far as it took to break free, or maybe that’s as far as they could go. It could even be that when you sent them back, they came back…off target, or something. We don’t really know. But we do know that they believed a violent act would force them out of their…host bodies.”

Mitch gaped at him. “That is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’ve been reciting the ritual,” Dean said suddenly. “You didn’t translate it, did you?”

“Well, I…I looked it over before I used it,” Mitch said. “I transliterated it into phonetics.”

Dean looked over Mitch’s head to Sam. “Maybe if he translates it, we’ll have a better idea what’s going on?”

Sam shrugged and nodded. Dean offered to make coffee and Mitch got to work.

“Oh, my God,” Mitch said, two pots of coffee and three hours later. “I…. Oh, my God.”

“What, Mitch?” Sam asked gently.

“Well, I…this incantation? It…changes partway through. It starts out as a simple spell for virility, but then—” He rose quickly and pulled the book off his desk. He flipped it open furiously, not bothering with cotton gloves, but still being careful of the pages. He found the spot he was looking for, held up the page. He turned it slowly. Flipped it back. Flipped it forward. “Yeah, it definitely changes in the middle.” 

Sam held out his hand. “Let me see it,” he requested. Mitch handed the book over reverently. Sam bent the spine back as far as he could, ignoring Mitch’s frantic cry to protect the binding. Very close to the stitching, Sam saw, a page had been cut away. “There’s a page missing,” he announced.

Mitch’s eyes bugged out in horror. “What the hell was I doing, then?”

“We don’t know, dude,” Dean said. “But whatever it was, it was making suicide spirits hijack humans, ride them to distant towns, and commit random acts of violence.”

“That’s…like the worst horror movie plot ever!” Mitch moaned.

“No kidding.”

“No more Namru worship, dude,” Dean said laconically.

“Yeah, no shit,” Mitch agreed. He looked back and forth between them nervously. “So…what are you gonna do now? Report me to the cops?”

Dean scoffed. “Yeah, great. We’ll tell them a 6,000-year-old spell caused those crimes.”

“Dean…” Sam sighed. “Sorry. We usually…hunt things that aren’t human to begin with.”

“Hunt?” Mitch repeated. He pulled his knees up to his chest. “Like… _The Most Dangerous Game_?”

“No, no, no, no,” Sam said, holding out his palms. “It’s okay, Mitch. My brother and I hunt…spirits.”

“Oh. Like the _Ghost Hunters_?”

Dean cast his eyes heavenward. “Yeah. Only without the stupid cameras. Look, Mitch, the point is, we can’t turn you in, there’s no one to turn you in _to_. And we can’t kill you—well, we could, but that’s not what we do,” Dean caught Sam’s eye and Sam saw a glint of frustration there. “So I guess all we can do is hit you upside the head with a clue-by-four.”

“Well, you might also want to make some kind of reparation to the people whose lives you messed up,” Sam added, trying not to sound like their father in one of his lecture modes. “But I guess, that’s up to you.” He pulled out his journal and copied down the names. “And behave yourself. Or we’ll be back.”

 

~*~THEN~*~

Beverly had wanted to do it properly, with limited guardianship and power of attorney and all, but John refused. 

“It’s six weeks at the outside,” he said, sticking with the winter break date. He did go to a notary and signed documents giving her the right to make medical decisions if either boy should need attention immediately. “I’ll call every day,” he promised, “and if something happens, I can get on the first plane back.”

He left her money to take care of them, too. On January 2nd, the day before they went back to school, he brought them over with their belongings. Each boy carried his backpack and one duffel, and John brought in a third bag that he said had all the “other stuff.” While the boys lugged their things upstairs, he handed her a thick envelope. “Should be enough for the month and for Dean’s party,” he explained. “About that...I plan to be back in time for it, but I’ve never been good at planning that kind of—”

“Leave it to me,” Beverly said. If she had maternal feelings at all, lately they were more for John than his children. But she worked with kids every day, and had no difficulty believing that between her and Dean, they could make all the arrangements.

“Okay,” he breathed. His voice was so soft that the “K” sounded harsh in contrast. “I’ll call at 8:30 every night,” he assured her. “And if for some reason I miss two calls in a row...Dean knows what to do.”

That sounded uncomfortably ominous, but Beverly guessed that over the years, they had to have developed contingency plans. For when John couldn’t get out of work, or whatever.

The boys clattered back down the stairs. She took the envelope into her office to give the Winchesters privacy for their goodbye, as well as to look at the amount without John. Inside was cash—$2,000. Enough for food, Dean’s party at the arcade, even new clothes should they need any. That was unlikely; she’d noticed that new socks, flannel shirts, and even a pair of jeans each had been part of their Christmas loot. Though John was relying on her to watch his children, he clearly didn’t want his debt to extend any further than necessary.

When she came out, she heard Dean in the living room, objecting to something. She hung back, eavesdropping, because she didn’t want to interrupt and because she figured this was the only chance she’d get to hear Dean’s real opinion about the next month’s arrangements. “—take care of Sammy myself, Dad.”

“Not for a month, you can’t. That’s enough. I expect you to behave for Mrs. Kirkland like you would for Pastor Jim—in front of the congregation. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.” Dean sounded sullen, but resigned.

“Good. Look, pal, I’ll be back for your birthday, okay? You get to stay until then. That’s what you wanted, right?”

Dean said something unintelligible.

“Dean, I _do_ trust you,” John said, a little frustrated. “I’m giving you a choice. You can stay here a little longer, with your school friends, and get that party in the arcade. Or, you don’t want it, say so now and we’ll pack it up. Either way, I can’t stay another month. You know that. So what’s it gonna be?”

There was a pause. Beverly wondered in that moment how much damage John had really done, in the heat of whatever had happened that summer, and how long it would take for Dean to heal. One birthday party might salve John’s conscience, but it wasn’t going to make up for John running away—and from what she’d seen, that was just what he was doing. She wondered if perhaps she should refuse to enable him…but then Dean would just lose his party on top of everything else, and she would lose the opportunity to make any sort of difference for him and Sam.

Dean muttered again, words so soft Beverly couldn’t make them out. But he must have made his decision because John grunted. “That’s my man. So I’ll see you in about three weeks, okay? Don’t worry, sport, I’ll call so much you’ll get sick of me.”

Beverly heard him move to Sam next. She didn’t dare peek around the doorway, but she could imagine John reviewing his little brigade of troops, bucking up the men before a campaign. He said he’d been fifteen years out of the Corps, but he sure hadn’t lost any of the military routine when it came to relating to his sons. 

“Sammy, you be good, okay?”

“Sure.” Sam’s tone changed, as if making a point to Dean. “I _like_ Mrs. Kirkland.”

John was unimpressed. “Whether you like her or not, you behave for her. No fighting with your brother, no griping about the grub, lights out when she tells you, brush your teeth every day, help her with KP and trash detail, or whatever else, right?”

“Okay, Dad,” Sam said as if he’d heard this a number of times already.

“I mean it, little guy—none of your usual crap. And don’t watch too much TV.”

“Yes, sir!” Sam barked with enthusiasm.

“Attaboy.” There was a sound of shifting fabric. Beverly sneaked around the corner, eager to watch them hug. Instead she saw that John was standing from a crouch. He threw his bag onto his shoulder on top of his new coat, and was now patting Sam briefly on the head. “Okay,” he continued, catching her eye. “Thanks again,” he said to bring her over to the family.

“My pleasure,” Beverly said breezily. It hit her that he was really leaving, seriously going to abandon his kids with a relative stranger. And she was letting him. His CO in Vietnam had been right: he had balls for days. “Well, you’d probably like to get on the road,” she continued, fighting a sudden urge to throw him bodily out of her house and sue for full custody of the boys.

“Yeah. Not much daylight to begin with,” he commented wearily, making no move toward the door. “No sense wasting what’s left by standing here.”

Beverly felt a burning behind her eyes and closed them quickly. She would _not_ give him the satisfaction. “We’ll come out on the porch to wave goodbye,” she announced, moving toward Dean and Sam. They retreated before her, which in turn forced John toward the entry hall.

He opened her front door and stepped into the cold. Without looking back, he walked to the Impala and tossed his bag in the back seat, then climbed behind the wheel. A few seconds later, the engine rumbled, he backed out, cocked the wheel to the right, and with a single sharp saluting wave, turned away. The exhaust clouded up in the cold air and covered the tail of the Impala like mist as he drove off.

Dean and Sam ran back inside immediately. Beverly watched long after the taillights were no longer visible and the sound of the engine faded in the morning quiet.

She quickly learned that the boys were incredibly self-sufficient and mostly low-maintenance. Dean kept Sam to a fairly strict schedule, which made Beverly wonder how much of the parenting he did even when John was around. The one thing she insisted on was doing the cooking, because it became clear in the first three days that their idea of supper consisted of takeout, diners, grilled cheese, and Chef Boyardee. After the first couple meals, however, neither of them seemed to mind the profound lack of Wendy’s and frozen dinners in their diet.

About a week after John left, Dean knocked on her office door. “Yes, Dean, what is it?”

He looked at her with a copy of John’s most stoic expression. “Dad loves Mom,” he told her simply. It was a challenge without any doubt, a dare to contradict him or deny the truth.

“Yes, Dean. He loves her a lot,” she agreed.

The mildness with which she said it surprised Dean so much that he blushed and looked away. She felt sorry for him; he wasn’t sure whether he’d been cut off at the knees or vindicated. Evidently, the uncertainty of it bothered him, because he tried again. “No, I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Dean,” Beverly said with a tired sigh. “And I understand exactly how he feels. You see, I still love my husband a whole lot, too.”

Dean looked around. “There’s a Mr. Kirkland?” He looked like he expected Tom to walk through the door at any moment.

“There was,” she explained. “It’s okay, though. Your dad and I are friends.”

“Friends?” Dean echoed uncomprehendingly. It was as if he couldn’t contemplate men and women being friends. He probably couldn’t. Beverly didn’t expect there’d been too many female influences on the boys in relation to their father since Mary’s death. John had pretty well confessed as much.

She nodded. “Well, he trusted me to look after you and Sam, right?”

Dean considered the validity of her logic. He took a tentative step toward her desk. “Yeah, I guess,” he admitted, one shoulder rising and then relaxing.

“And I’m happy to have you two visit, but between you and me, I’m glad I’m not a full-time mom.”

If he had been expecting a speech to prepare him for gaining a step-mother, her divulgence completely threw him for a loop. She suspected he’d come here prepared for a fight, but she wasn’t going to fall into that trap. She did take pity on him and decided to ease his anxiety a bit. “Come and sit down,” she invited, pointing to the one chair that didn’t have books in it, waiting to be shelved. He perched on the edge of the cushion, arms crossed. 

“Dean, I don’t know if your dad would ever seriously consider getting remarried,” she told him candidly, “but I know that some of our first conversations were about the people we’d lost. I know he was really worried that you’d get the wrong idea because he asked me to let you and Sam stay here.”

“He was?”

“Mm-hm,” Beverly confirmed, nodding. “Now, I like you. But honestly, the kids at the library, having you two here for a month...that’s about all the mothering I can handle.”

Dean started to smile, but caught it before his lips opened to reveal teeth. “Well, Sammy is kind of a pain in the a—uh, butt.”

Beverly gave him a wry grin, mouth twisting, but no teeth showing, either. “No, I think you both do just fine. Do you want spaghetti tonight?”

Dean shrugged. “S’fine,” he said. He got up, and whether he was grateful for the subject change or just fooled by it, he crossed to the door. “Mrs. Kirkland?”

“Yes?”

“Do you love him, anyway?” His voice was quiet, plaintive, as if afraid that it wasn’t okay to love someone and not be loved back in the same way, or the same amount. As if he were worried that she would hate John for making her love him. 

As if he were worried that John didn’t love _him_ back, and as if that were his fault.

Beverly swallowed. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? It doesn’t change anything. I’m your librarian, Dean. And your dad’s friend.”

That seemed to satisfy him finally, but he couldn’t resist one last volley. He grinned ghoulishly and asked, “Can I ask you one other question?”

“Of course.”

“What’s sex?”

Beverly couldn’t quite stop her eyes from widening, her face from flushing. She dropped her pen on the blotter, but in the second it took her to retrieve it, she took a deep breath and blinked back at him. Tom would have said that Bambi had come home to roost, or something equally inane. “Well, Dean, there’s a whole section on that at the library. Why don’t we take a look tomorrow after school and I can help you pick out some books on the subject.”

“You’re not gonna just tell me?” he challenged. He didn’t mean what sex was, either—of that, she was sure.

“No, I’m not,” she replied, refusing to take the bait. “Because like I just said, I’m not your mother.”

 

~*~NOW~*~

It was late, but not too late to go back to Mrs. Kirkland’s house when they left Mitch’s place. Sam argued that they should, if only to return the key and take advantage of another night’s free stay. “Maybe she’ll let us do laundry.”

Dean was still distracted by the one that got away. “I wish we coulda capped him,” he muttered on the way back to Dublin.

“Dude. Do you want your rap sheet to get any longer?”

“I’m just sayin’, Sammy, this sucks. He’s getting away with murder.”

“Manslaughter,” Sam murmured.

“Whatever, man. This blows.”

“Yeah, it does,” Sam agreed glumly. “If there were any way—”

“I know. Not even an anonymous tip would make this stick.”

“You think he’ll do anything? For Lauren or David?”

Dean sniffed. “Probably not. What’s he going to do? Confess to the cops that he conducted an ancient ritual that didn’t quite do what he thought, and that’s why they flipped out?” He scoffed. “Nah, face it, Sam, all we could do on this one was stop this idiot from making it worse.”

Sam was silent for a minute. Then with a sigh, he concluded, “Well, he’s going to have to live with knowing that his stupid bid for glory caused a lot of pain to perfect strangers. That, and he’s going to have to start over on his research.” He grinned.

“You snaked the book?” Dean asked, glowing with pride.

Sam reached into his satchel and pulled it out. “I figured we could use it. Who knows, it’s something we’ve never seen before.” He didn’t mention that if he could find the other half of the ritual, there might be something in it to combat Dean’s impending doom. He didn’t want to think about Dean dying, but if worse came to worst, resurrection spells might come in handy.

“Aw, Sammy. I knew I raised you right.”

Mrs. Kirkland’s lights were still on when they pulled into her driveway. They climbed out and Sam grabbed their clothing duffels out of the trunk. The porch light clicked on as they approached. “I heard the car,” Mrs. Kirkland explained when she opened the door. “Come on in.”

She preceded them into the living room. “So, did you…finish your hunt?” she asked.

Sam dropped the duffels. “How did you…?”

“Your dad’s letter,” she said. She poured herself a drink. “Want one?” she offered, and turned over two more tumblers, splashing the liquid in without waiting for their answer. A silver bracelet circled her wrist. The charm glinted in the light as she poured and picked up the glasses.

“Mrs. Kirkland, are you ok—”

“I’m fine, Sam,” she said. “I even believe him. See, I read his letter this morning. Then I went to my library. And I looked up a few things. The Johnson House, Franklin Castle…all those haunted houses? They really were haunted, weren’t they? And you two…are you really wanted by the FBI?”

Dean’s jaw clenched. “You gonna call them?” he asked. His voice was deadly calm, but Sam could tell he’d gone from tired to terrified in two seconds flat.

Mrs. Kirkland stared at him for a long time. “No,” she said finally. “Here,” she said, passing one of the tumblers toward him. Sam got a good look at the charm—it had a protective symbol etched on it. “Have a drink.”

“Look, we can go if—” Sam began to offer.

“No. I’m glad you came back. I’m glad, Sam.” She looked at Dean. “Dean, I don’t care if you’re wanted. If half the things I’ve read since yesterday are true…well, if they are, then I’m not surprised the FBI has its head up its ass where you two are concerned. But more importantly, I knew your father. I think I know him even better now than before. And I can’t believe he raised either of you to be killers.”

Dean knocked back the whiskey and sat heavily on the sofa. “You and Dad…you….”

“I didn’t plan to, believe me, Dean,” she said quietly. “I don’t think he planned to, either.”

Sam’s head snapped up. That had been Dean’s issue, not the sex. He didn’t want to relive the past, true—Dean never liked looking back—no more than he’d wanted to force Mrs. Kirkland to look it in the eye. But what had been bugging Dean since the jump was the idea that Dad had felt more than lust for someone other than Mom.

Her next statement should have allayed that fear. “But he was so committed to your mother,” she said. “And I think now, I finally know why. Did he…did he find the thing that killed her?”

Dean looked away. Sam nodded. “Yeah, he…he did. We got the bastard, too.”

“But it killed him?”

Dean dropped his head. “Yeah. Basically,” Sam supplied.

Mrs. Kirkland nodded. Tears spilled out of her eyes. “I think you ought to know, he was so scared you boys would hate him. Dean, he told me, when we…talked…about you two staying here, he said that he’d been waiting for you to be ready for him. I didn’t get it at the time, but now I do. He was looking for you to give him permission to hunt. He also told me that the main reason he wanted you to stay through January was so that you could hang on to your friends long enough for a real birthday party.”

Dean got up and poured more liquor. 

“But I think he was in trouble either way, right? He was afraid that if he pulled you out, you’d think that he was punishing you. That he was so angry with you over whatever wrong he perceived you’d done, that he couldn’t stand to be around.” She sipped her drink. “But you still thought that, didn’t you, because he left without you? Dean, you do realize that whatever happened, he wasn’t running away from you?”

“I don’t need this,” Dean muttered. He looked like he wanted to bolt upstairs, but Sam held up his hand to tell him to chill out.

“Maybe not,” Mrs. Kirkland admitted. “But—hang on. Stay there. I want to read you something.” She got up and went into her office, returning immediately with the letter. 

Sam could see that his father had written it on pages from the journal, and that his writing crossed the lines of the paper and became progressively messy and uncontrolled. It went on for several pages. She scanned them. “He wrote this the day before he came back for your birthday, Dean. Here. _I know you know that I’ll always love Mary, that I’ll always put her boys’ safety before my own happiness. But now you know why._ and this: _I have a mission. I’ve gotta finish finding out what caused Mary to die—why she was murdered—and I’ve gotta destroy it forever. And meanwhile, even more importantly, I’ve gotta make sure my boys are safe. That they know how to take care of themselves. Until I do that, I can’t give you what you deserve, Bev. I can’t ask you to play second fiddle to a memory._ “

She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “He said he wished things could be different. Believe me, I wish things had been different, too. But please, please don’t think your father ever thought anything was more important than you boys, and your mother.”

She took another slug of the whiskey. “Now, I think I should go to bed. You two probably want to get some sleep, too. And in the morning, I’m going to make pancakes, and you will eat them.”

 

~*~LATER~*~

You want to know about whom? Winchester? You can’t mean John…. Let me see that picture again? Yes…that’s John. John Winchester. Wow. Now there’s a man I haven’t thought of in….

Did I know he was on the FBI’s dangerous persons list? Do I look like a woman who would harbor a dangerous person? Don’t answer that.

Yes, I knew him. A long time ago. No, I’m sorry—I’ve no idea where he is or if he’s even alive.

What do you think the precise nature of our relationship was, Agent…Reidy? Do you expect me to be delicate about it? We had an affair. And his boys stayed with me, for about four weeks in 1990.

Heh. If you think that, you haven’t done your profiling work very well. John…well, one look at John and you knew you were never going to have his undivided attention. Even without the boys. His wife…none of us were ever going to stand in for her. But a man, even a man like John, needs companionship once in a while. Still, even the fifty percent of him—or even less, I guess, with Dean and Sam in the equation—even that was plenty.

No, I haven’t heard from either of them, either. I doubt they’d even know how to get in touch with me. Don’t know that they even remember much about it. John was careful about that. Didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. I have to say that at the time, the last thing I wanted was to become a step-mother….

You’re kidding. No. I don’t believe a word of it. John didn’t raise reprobates, let alone killers. I mean, they were a bit rambunctious, but…homicidal? No. They were good boys.

I’m sorry. I really haven’t seen them. Not since January 29, 1990.

Yes, of course, I understand, Agent Reidy. Yes, if I hear from them, I’ll call. But I really don’t think that’s going to happen. The Winchesters aren’t men who retrace their steps much. 

No, I really don’t have anything else to say. Of course, Agent. I’m glad you liked the coffee. Take care, now. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is also a prequel to my other major SPN work, [Trost und Freude](http://archiveofourown.org/works/837986/chapters/1596600). It takes place just before Christmas, 1990, when a hunt requires John to use a very special seasonal cover story....


End file.
